


Belonging

by orphan_account



Series: Kakashi x Ame [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Family Drama, Friendship, Friendship turned romance, Nomad, Original Character - Freeform, sweet romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 03:37:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17800352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "You deserve someone a million times better than I can ever be, and yet, I am selfish." Loss bound Ame and Kakashi as unlikely friends. A nomad and a ninja, both orphaned as small children, they found comfort and belonging in each other. As their lives merge and diverge over the years, their bonds will be tested. KakashixOC





	1. Prologue

Ame Shinrinyoku trembled as she stood at the foot of the fresh grave. Every day, she'd gone there in the morning and at nightfall, but it still felt unreal. Her father could not be dead. Crouching down, she put laid her hands on the cool dirt. Small grass blades were beginning to sprout. "Where are you?" she whispered.

Silence answered her, and she moved her hand over the dried leaves that were scattered over the grass. Gathering a handful, she looked down at them. They had once been green and full of life. They had given life to their trees as he'd given his for his village. She stood with a sharp exhale and crushed the leaves, letting their broken bodies flutter down to mulch the newborn grass.

It broke tradition for a leaf village shinobi to be buried outside the Konoha Cemetary. Much of what her father had done in his life broke tradition, she mused as she glanced towards the graveyard. A young boy with strikingly gray hair stood before a stone, the solitary other person under the darkening maw of sky. He'd started going every evening about two weeks before.

She turned from him and walked down the path that led to the forest. Her bare feet knew places to walk that were softer than any shoes she may have donned. The forest grew blacker and blacker, until she felt as if she'd walked into her own grave, but the darkness had never hindered her before.

Slowly, faintly, the darkness lessened as she approached a moonlit meadow. In the middle was a large blue tent, surrounded by a vast garden. She had been born in that tent. She had slept in it under the sky of a hundred villages, maybe a thousand, in every land known to mankind, but this was home, this spot of land outside Konoha. It was the ground between her mother's world and her father's. A realm of ghosts, she thought as she pushed back the heavy front flap and entered the dimly lit tent. Multicolored oil lanterns hung from the rafters, casting comforting shadows on the hard packed dirt floor and tapestried walls.

The tent was the size of a house, but Ame knew how to perform a summoning jutsu that would allow her to seal it inside a large scroll and carry it easily wherever the road would take her. Something in her bones ached to leave, but something else anchored her. In the last six months, she'd lost both her parents. Even at nine years old, she knew that there was no sensible reason to stay there. Neither would return to her.

She grabbed an armload of firewood and placed it on the open fire pit in the middle of the main room. She sat on the rugs and watched as the flames grew. Her mind drifted to her parents. Her mother had died in the spring; killed at the hands of a small gang of rogue ninja. They had been on the highway between villages, her mother's cart loaded with supplies. They had slaughtered her for a cart full of gardening tools, seeds, and a small satchel of coins.

"Run!" her mother has screamed to Ame, who'd been rooted to the ground in fear. "Find your father! Run!"

"Those were your last words," Ame thought as she poked the fire. There shouldn't have been fear in her mother's voice in her last moments. She had been such a kind-hearted, gentle person. For two weeks after she'd returned with her father and other Leaf Ninja to find her beautiful mother lying in a pool of her own blood, Ame had not uttered a word. Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could see her mother's blue-gray eyes, open and staring blankly up at the misty rain.

It was a bright, starry night when they cremated her mother, in keeping with the traditions of her people. Ame and her father stood watch. For two days they fed the fire until all traces of her mother were disintegrated into a fine white ash. On the morning of the third day, they released her to the wind. Perhaps that was why her mother felt so much closer to her than her father. It was as if her mother's voice was in the cricket's song; the wind had become her fingers, running through Ame's hair; the stars had become her eyes.

"Did you ever find father?" she thought as she stood wearily and gathered the things to cook a small meal over the fire. Could her mother's spirit reach far enough into the earth to free him? Were they both traveling the winds together? She hoped so.


	2. The Nomad and The Ninja

Two days later, Ame was sitting at her mother's stall in the market surrounded by baskets of herbs, vegetables, and fruit, bottles of ointments, tinctures, and salves. She handed a bag to an elderly woman, who asked how she was holding up. "I'm fine," Ame lied with an empty smile.

The white haired boy from the cemetery walked up, a grocery bag slung over his shoulder and a blank expression on his face Ame understood all too well. He wore the headband of a ninja, but he looked years younger than her.

"You look too young to be a shinobi," she said softly as he handed her the produce he'd selected.

"And you look too young to be manning a stall," he said flatly.

"I'm nine," she said.

"Hmm," was all he said as he handed her his money and reached for the bag, but Ame held firm.

"How old are you? Five?"

"Six," he said, staring at the bag with an increasingly cold glare.

"What's your name?"

"Kakashi Hatake."

The last name rung bells in Ame's head. "Your father was Sakumo Hatake?"

The boy winced by the slightest degree, but he nodded.

"He was a good man," Ame said softly as she handed Kakashi the bag.

His hand remained held out for a moment. Disbelief flashed in his eyes and for the briefest he feared that he would cry, but he swallowed and nodded, taking the bag and putting it into the one he'd been carrying. "Thank you."

"Ame," she said, filling in a blank he hadn't even realized he'd left, "Shinrinyoku."

"Ame," he repeated, with another nod.

"See you around, Kakashi-kun."

He cocked an eyebrow, then turned and walked away through the crowded marketplace. She stared after him, surprised she had said so many words. She couldn't remember the last day she'd said so many words. She supposed it was the day before her mother had died. That realization hit her so hard that her breath caught in her throat. She moved robotically through the next transactions.

Her father, who she'd loved so dearly, who had brought her mother live flowers every day until she'd died, who had taught Ame to defend herself in that gap between her mother's death and his, she had said so little to him in those precious last days. She was grateful it was close to closing, and decided to end the day early.

She boarded the stall and made her way down the dusty streets out of town. Her mind churned over all the things she should have said to her father. How she should have stayed beside her mother and tried to fight them off. Hot tears ran freely down her cheeks as she walked down the empty road.

The path forked, one way headed to her home, the other to the cemetery. Without thinking her feet guided her to the cemetery. She walked around the parameter even though she'd long since stopped believing her mother's superstitions that such places would trap your soul. She knelt on her father's grave, disregarding the moist dirt that stained the knees of her pink yukata. "Daddy," she whispered as she ran her fingers in the dirt. "I am so sorry."

Kakashi walked down the road, ignoring the raindrops that were falling as he made his way to his father's grave. The sun was perched at the top of the tree tops, its last rays pushing defiantly through the western clouds. It made the raindrops look like goad and had this been a month ago, back when life was right and good, Kakashi would have relished the beauty of it.

As it was, though, all he could think of were the words of that strange shop girl, Ame Shinrinyoku. She must be Nichibotsu Shinrinyoku's daughter, he thought.

All throughout the village people whispered, and sometimes talked openly, about how his father was responsible for her father's death and the deaths of the rest of their team. The other families glared at him as though he were the spawn of a demon. It had been those accusations and his own tremendous guilt that had led Sakumo to kill himself, leaving Kakashi utterly alone in the world.

As Kakashi neared the cemetery, he noticed Ame laying in a heap on her father's grave that was some 100 yards outside the cemetery grounds. The idea that he had removed himself from the village that he'd died protecting stung.

"Regardless what his daughter thinks, he must have hated my father in the end," Kakashi thought bitterly.

For decades after, Kakashi couldn't understand what led him to go to Ame. He had no idea what he should say to her as he crouched down beside the older girl, whose body wracked with sobs. Mud was smeared over her dress and body. It clung to her shoulder length, blue-black hair. Gently he pushed a strand of it back, leaving a streak of mud in its wake. She startled and sat up, blushing fiercely as she tried to wipe the tears away, which only muddied her face more. Without a word, she scrambled to her bare feet and ran down a foot path to the woods.

"Ame!" Kakashi called after her, but it only caused her to speed up.

Standing, he watched her run for a moment before he took off after her into the woods.

"Ame, wait!" he called again right before he caught up with her.

Suddenly there was only darkness surrounding him.

"She has a jutsu?" he wondered, cursing himself for not paying closer attention. He slowed almost to a stop, listening for her footsteps, but he heard nothing. "Ame, I'm sorry. I know you must hate me for your father's death."

The darkness fell away like a falling curtain. Ame stood thirty feet from where he'd seen her last, filthy, with matted hair and red-rimmed eyes. "I don't hate you," she said in a soft, tear rasped voice.

"Then why did you run?"

She shrugged, as she toed the dirt.

He suddenly realized that she may have simply been embarrassed about being seen that way and startled at being caught off guard. "I'm sorry I disturbed you," he said as he turned to leave.

"Don't go!" she cried, reaching out to him. "I… I need to get cleaned up, but would you… would you stay for supper?"

Kakashi nodded and followed behind her a ways. He noticed the way she tread, softer than any other person he'd seen, including jonin. Her father must have trained her, he reasoned.

They came up to her tent, surrounded by the most beautiful garden Kakashi had ever seen. Even though it was late autumn, there were perfusions of flowers.

Ame rolled back the door flap and gestured Kakashi inside. "There is fresh juice in the pitcher near the cupboard," she said. "Make yourself at home."

She excused herself as she went into a back room and he heard running water. A tent with plumping?! he thought as he sat by the fire pit. He had heard his father mention that Nichibotsu had married a foreign woman from the Land of Wind. Though she was a desert dweller, she was an exceptional herbalist, or so he was told.

Kakashi was looking around the large room at the tapestries and baskets hung on the walls when Ame walked in, toweling off her hair. "Thank you for waiting. I'm sorry I was such a mess. I didn't mean to make you miss your visit with your father," she said as she gathered an armful of firewood and set to rebuilding the fire.

He shrugged although he knew he would stop by the graveyard before returning home.

"Will your mother be worried about you staying for supper?" Her head popped up as she looked at the silver-haired, little boy sitting cross-legged in front of the fire.

He shook his head. "She died a long time ago."

Ame's face fell. "Then your grandmother? Your aunt?"

Kakashi shook his head again. "It's just me."

Her eyes welled up with tears. "Kakashi-kun, you need someone to look out for you! You're only a child."

The last sentence stung his pride and he glared at her. "I beat ninjas three times my age! And at least I have the good sense not to walk around barefoot and sleep in the mud!" The moment the words escaped his lips he regretted them, but his gaze only softened slightly.

Ame's eyes grew cold as she gazed at the fire. "We are the earth," she said in a voice that didn't sound like her own. It was older, like a sage speaking across the millennia. Without a look back at the boy, she stood and got the things to make supper.

"How old was your father when he died?" she asked.

"How would I know?" Kakashi said, but the anger had left his voice.

"My father was 31. My mother was 29. She had twenty years of wisdom I need. Not because I can't work or feed myself or tend house, but because sometimes I'm afraid… and I know you never are, but I am. And sometimes I'm sick or hurt or lonely. Sometimes my heart breaks from being alone, and I don't think it would hurt so if I were twenty-nine. I'm still a child and so are you. Even if you beat ninja three times your age."

Kakashi squirmed ever so slightly, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. "Did your father teach you that darkness jutsu?" he asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from feelings.

"Yes, after mother died. He said I needed to know how to protect myself."

"He was right," Kakashi said. "I'm surprised you weren't enrolled in the Academy. Your father's clan is small, but…"

"Mother would not allow me to touch a weapon," she said as she sliced apples, laying them carefully on the black pan.

"A knife is a weapon," Kakashi pointed out. "Is she the one who taught you to cook?"

To his surprise, she gave a soft laugh. "A knife is a tool, Kakashi-kun."

"A weapon is a tool as well."

She shrugged. "My mother's people are pacifists."

Kakashi's eyebrows shot up, "How did she wind up married to a ninja?"

"He was very kind, and my mother thought she could influence him for good."

"Did she?"

Ame smiled. There was something warm and comforting about her smile, he thought as he watched her cook the food. It wasn't the kind of smile a person wore for others. It was genuine and fragile, and made him feel as if, perhaps one day, he may smile again too.

"Did she?" he asked again after several moments.

"Did she what?" Ame looked at him with her head cocked to the side.

"Influence him for good."

"I think so. And he did her as well. They were good for each other."

"So are you a pacifist too?"

"I am…" She furrowed her brow, "a survivor, I suppose. I want to live out my days in peace. I don't want to harm anyone, but I never want to lose another person I love because of my own weakness."

"You should join the Academy."

"I have to work, Kakashi-kun," she said with another smile as she leaned over and ruffled his already unruly hair. "Anyway, I want to leave this land before winter sets in too deeply."

"Leave? Where will you go?"

Ame chuckled. "Wherever I please."

"Will you come back?"

She shrugged. "I imagine."

"I can train you until you leave, when I don't have missions," he said before he even realized he was saying it.

Her eyes sparkled as she clasped her hands together and smiled at him. "I would like that!"

Kakashi nodded. Maybe this would in some small way ease his father's sense of guilt. Can you see me, Dad? he thought.


	3. The Challenge

"Bend your knees a bit more," Kakashi said as he stood on a tree branch, watching Ame trying to work through the kata he'd just taught her and thinking, not for the first or even the hundredth time, that she was more probably more hopeless than Obito.

"Ugh!" she groaned, collapsing into the moss by the riverbank.

"You're giving up?!" he asked.

"No…" she huffed dramatically. "I'm dying."

Biting back a sigh, he leapt off the branch he'd been standing on and walked over to her. "You're not dying. You just need to…"

His words were lost as a wet ball smacked into the side of his head. Incredulously, he put his hand to the spot and found it covered with mud. Ame grinned up at him, squinting against the midday sun, before she scrambled up and ran.

"Great," Kakashi groaned as he walked up to the creek and knelt down, carefully trying to clean himself off to the sound of Ame's giggling retreat.

Her laughter died away and she turned and walked back to him somberly. "Kakashi-kun?" she said as she crouched down beside him.

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"You take everything too seriously."

"You don't take anything seriously," he countered blandly as he wiped the last of the mud away.

"This is supposed to be your day off." She said, dipping her fingers in the cool, clear water and watching the drops roll off the tips.

He nodded. "And I'm wasting my time trying to train you," he said.

She looked up at him with hurt in her eyes, not so much for his words, she'd gotten used to his calloused nature. It's sad, she thought, resisting the urge to cuddle the little boy, that he has no childhood.

"When was the last time you played?" Ame asked as Kakashi sat beside her with a slightly annoyed sigh.

He thought back to the day he and Obito played kick the can. It was before his father had died. "It hasn't been that long," he said.

Ame raised an eyebrow. "That long? As in… a week? A couple days?"

"A few months," he muttered, then looked up as if daring her to counter. "I've got more important things than just playing around all the time. I have to train, and I have missions."

"When was the last time you laughed?" Ame asked.

"Does it matter?" he asked, pushing himself up and dusting himself off.

Ame stood quickly, following behind the masked little boy. "Of course it does! I know you're still hurting for your father, but Kakashi-kun, he would want you to keep living."

"I am living!" Kakashi found himself shouting back to her. "And stop calling me 'kun,' I'm not a little kid!"

Without a word, Ame leaned over so that she was eye level with him, her light eyes searching his black ones. "You're scared," she said.

"I'm not scared of anything!" he said, although even he knew that was a lie.

"Okay, prove it," she said, standing straight again so that she was a foot taller than him. She crossed her arms. "If you're not scared, you'll give me one day."

"One day for what?!" he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

"One day for you to be a kid," she said. "A real kid, one who plays in the mud and climbs trees and eats too many sweets and tries to stay up till midnight." She nodded her head resolutely.

"That's stupid," he muttered as he turned to walk away.

"Sure it is," she called after him, "scaredy cat."

He stopped in his path, his mind a jumbled mess of objections. The easiest thing in the world would have been to walk away right then. Ame was impossible. Even if she were three years older, she acted like a child and she treated him as even more of one. What good on Earth could come of indulging that?

Scaredy cat. He scoffed, but turned and said, "Fine. I go on a mission tomorrow morning. Whenever I return, you'll have one day. That's it. But in exchange you'll either get serious about learning ninjitsu or give it up. Deal?"

"Deal," Ame said with a wide smile.

Kakashi drew a deep breath as he stepped out into the forest. True to his word, on his first day off, he was headed to Ame's, albeit with much misgiving. Goodness knows what that crazy girl had up her sleeves for the day.

The morning light was thin and dewy as he made his way to the clearing. There was a faint humming, and he carefully skirted around the camp until he spotted Ame milking a goat by a small shed. Her dark hair was all pulled up under a red bandana, and her sleeves were rolled up to the shoulders. He couldn't tell the song she was humming, but she smiled to herself as she worked.

It didn't make sense to him, the peace she had. Outside of that first day, when he'd found her sobbing on her father's grave, Ame was one of the most unnaturally happy people he'd ever met. She stood, cracking her back, before she hoisted the bucket with one hand and pat the goat away with another.

When she'd gone into the tent, he emerged from the shadows with a deep sigh. It was going to be a long day, he thought as he stood before the tent and called, "Ame?"

The door flap flew open and Ame stood before him, beaming. "Kakashi-kun!" she cried, ignoring his complaints from the other day as she wrapped him in a hug. "Come on in." She pulled him into the main room and sat him on a stack of plush rugs.

"So… what are we doing today?" he asked reluctantly as he watched her putting food on a plate.

"Well," she said with a sly smile. "First, breakfast."

Walking up to him she put the plate into his hands. It was full of ham, fruit, and tarts. "Actually," she said as she crouched down beside him, studying him with her head cocked to the side, "first we reveal a mystery."

Her fingers went up to the corner of his mask and he pulled away sharply, holding a side of the mask as though it were a liferaft. Ame withdrew her hand by the slightest, but smiled. "Come on, I don't even see how you can breathe properly with that thing on, much less eat."

"I've eaten around you before," he said defensively, one small hand still holding tight to the mask.

"Scaredy cat," she said with a smirk.

Kakashi's eyes narrowed.

"Come on," she said softly. "It's only me in here. Me and you. I'll tell you something my mom used to tell my dad, 'In this home, you aren't a ninja. In this home, you are simply you'."

He continued to stare at her, but his grip on the mask lessened a bit, and she slowly pulled it down slowly to reveal pale cheeks and a pouting set of lips with a birthmark just below them. "There," he said, not at all comfortable with a blush beginning to rise, "are you happy?"

"Yes," she said with a grin as she ruffled his hair. "Now you actually look like a six-year-old. Eat up before it gets cold."

He set to work eating, fighting off the strong urge to pull the mask back up. As he did, she started to talk, "I got you something to help out today."

"Oh," he said between bites.

"A disguise," she said, looking back over her shoulder with a hopeful smile, but it didn't appear his curiosity would but peaked. "So we can go into town," she said with an exasperated huff after a few moments of silence. "Sneakily," she added with her last ounce of hope.

He gave her a flat look that didn't quite have the same effect without the mask.

When he'd finished, she handed him a new outfit and a small, dark wig of moppish curls. "Why?" was all he asked as she put it on him, tucking his silvery locks under the wig.

"Because," she said as she spun him around and guided him to a mirror. "Now you can be anyone you want to be," she leaned over his shoulder, looking at both their reflections in the mirror. Although he was lighter complexed than she was, they could have passed for siblings. She guessed, correctly, that no one in the village had ever seen Kakashi without his mask. Without it, he could hide in plain sight.

Whatever he had expected Ame to do with him that day, dragging him through the streets of Konoha was not one of them. He couldn't help feeling naked without the mask at first, but as the hours wore on, he found himself better hid than he could have expected.

He tensed as they rounded a corner and found Obito leaning up against a fence, tossing a small ball up in the air and catching it. Sensing something, Ame looked down at her friend and cracked a small smile.

"Hey, kid!" she called out to Obito, who looked up, somewhat surprised. "Wanna play?"

"What are you doing?" Kakashi grumbled out the corner of his mouth, but Obito just beamed and tossed the ball to Ame.

Ame rolled it over the backs of her hands and sent it in a gently arch back to Obito. "Keep away," she said, nodding her head to Kakashi and Obito smiled.

"Isn't that a little unfair to the kid?" Obito asked.

Ame laughed. "He's a bit more talented than he looks," she said. "Come on, Joji, see if you can get it?"

Kakashi rolled his eyes. Joji? Honestly.

"So what's your name?" Obito asked as he threw the ball back to her.

"Ame, and you?"

"Obito," he said.

The ball rolled off Obito's fingertips and he ran backward to catch it giving Kakashi a chance to whisper up to Ame, "Come on, we have to get out of here."

"Catch the ball first, Joji," she said with a wink. "Then I'll take you for ramen."

True to form, the next time the ball flew over his head, Kakashi leapt up and snatched it, landing gracefully back down with the ball in his hand. He looked up seriously at Ame, who only chuckled.

"Thanks for the game, Obito," she said. "We'll see you around. I think my little brother's hungry."


	4. For a Season or So

Ame smirked as the brunette five year old peeked over the counter at Kakashi. Ichiraku's daughter blushed when Kakashi caught her looking and hurriedly ran off to the back of the shop. "You could have at least smiled at the poor girl," Ame scolded him, gently shoving his shoulder.

"She was staring," he said blandly.

"Because she thinks you're cute," Ame teased.

"Ugh," he groaned, pushing the bowl back. "Girls are weird."

"No, my dear little brother, you are weird," Ame said as she pulled out her money and paid for their lunch. "Now, let's see. What to do, what to do…"

Kakashi looked up at her, waiting when her eyes lit up and she jumped down from the stool, grasping his hand and pulling him along after her. "What's the hurry?" he asked as they wove through the crowded street.

"I forgot today is the puppet show," she said as they neared a park.

"A puppet show?" He almost groaned. "Are you serious?"

"Hush!" Ame said as they approached the crowd. Most of the audience was filled with small children and their parents, but it was hard to see the stage from behind the crowd. Thinking about it for only a second Ame crouched down. "Get on my back," she said.

"What? No!" Kakashi said indignantly.

"Well, if you're scared," she sing-songed. "I know it's awfully high up here…"

He rolled his eyes and climbed onto her back.

"There," she said as she stood up again and pointed towards the stage as the puppets began to reenact a familiar folk tale. "You see a lot better up here, no?"

He relaxed slightly, wrapping his arm loosely around her shoulders and leaning his head against his upper arm. There was something comforting about having her hold him, the way his father often had before. Surrounded by families, it almost seemed, for a moment as if this were the way things always were.

When the play was over, though, he squirmed down, looking up at her as she smiled down at him. "So where are we going to next? The playground?" he asked sarcastically.

"Pfft," she shook her head, taking his hand in hers again. "No, I think you need something a lot more serious than that."

"More serious?" he asked, but she ignored him as they walked back onto the road out of town. "What do you mean more serious?"

Ame looked down at him with a smile, but said nothing until the crowd began to thin and the road began to open up. Then she crouched down beside him. "How fast are you?" she whispered in his ear.

"Faster than you," he said.

She smiled. "See that house far, far, far down the road," she said, pointing to a little shack about a half mile off.

He nodded.

"Race you," she said quickly as she stood up and took off, running as fast as her bare feet would take her towards the house. He gave a faint smile despite himself and took off after her, quickly closing the gap.

"I'm going to beat you!" Ame yelled just as he reached her.

"Oh, really," he said flatly, but a hint of a smile played on his lips.

She pushed herself, trying to catch him as he passed her, but he easily made it to the house, leaning against the wood wall as she skidded to a stop. "Good race," she said, slightly winded, as she ruffled his hair.

"What are we doing here?" he asked.

"Going swimming in the hot springs, silly," she said, gesturing to the sign on the house and opening the door for him to go in before her.

A few moments later, Kakashi walked out the bathhouse to find Ame chin deep in one of the large hot springs. "Come on in, Joji-kun!" she called with a wide smile as she used his assumed name.

"Is it deep?" he asked as he dipped his toes in.

Her eyebrows shot upward. "You can swim can't you?"

He nodded and she sighed with relief.

"No, it's not deep at all, look I'm standing up," she said.

When he slid into the water, she splashed him.

Sputtering, he wiped away the water. "Hot springs are supposed to be relaxing," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "You're just scared you won't be able to get me back," she said, sticking out her tongue.

He scowled for a moment, then said. "Oh, yeah?" and pushed a huge wave of water in her direction.

She squealed, letting the water crash into her and laughing. "Lucky shot!" she said, splashing at him again.

He dodged her wave and cast one of his own, hitting her again. This time as the water hit her he laughed. It wasn't the cold, sardonic laugh he'd grown used to in the last weeks, but a genuine one that rose up out his belly and took him by surprise.

Dripping water and staring, mouth agape, Ame was obviously also shocked. She smiled at him, a warm sense of right and purpose rising inside her. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

Hours later, they walked back towards her house, dripping slightly, in much lighter moods than they'd left that morning. Ame held onto Kakashi's hand and swung it as she walked through the woods. "So," she said as the tent began to come into view, "will it be cake or pie for supper?"

Kakashi chuckled. "Fish," he said. "I can cook for you, if you want."

"Now, just who's supposed to be taking care of who today?" Ame asked with a lopsided grin.

"Come on," Kakashi pleaded. "I saw you have a fishing pole and, honest, it won't take me long."

"Eh, fine," she said with a shrug as she opened the tent for him to walk in. "But only if you promise it won't undo everything I've worked so hard for today."

A faint smile played at Kakashi's lips as he looked up at her with a resolute nod. An hour later, after they'd returned from their little fishing trip, he was grilling up supper as she cut herbs and handed them to him.

Ame drew a deep breath through her nostrils. "It smells like heaven," she said with a sigh. "Who taught you how to cook?"

He shrugged. "I read how in a book."

She shook her head, leaning over and grabbing a carrot from the edge of the pan before blowing on it and dropping it into her mouth. "Oh. My. Goodness," she said between bites. "This is amazing! You're a genius."

Snorting he said, "I hear that a lot."

She rolled her eyes. "I bet you do. Well, let's see if everything tastes as good as the carrots."

After supper, after she'd put another load of wood on the fire, Ame pulled out a worn book from the shelf and sat down on the rugs, patting the seat next to her for Kakashi to join her. He looked at the book suspiciously. "Fairy tales?"

"Uh huh," she said with a nod as she reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him down so that he was seated close to her. Then putting her arm around his shoulder she opened the large book over both their laps.

"I know how to read to myself, you know," he said, although there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

"I know," she said with a small laugh as she leaned her head against the top of his, "but this is a bedtime story and those have to be read by someone else, so hush and be a good little boy."

With a sigh, he resigned, and she read about princesses, ninjas, sultans, emperors, magic, fairies, dragons, and more until his mind grew light and his eyes grew heavy and he drifted off to sleep in front of the dying fire.

Ame carefully moved him and tucked the blankets about him before she rose and walked outside. The crystal moonlight made the garden feel like a dreamscape. She had made him smile and laugh and play. That was something.

From the distance, she sensed people coming, but after a brief wave of panic, she relaxed as a woman and two children came into view. "Miho-san!" Ame said bowing with a wide smile as they stopped before her. To Miho's left and right were her daughter and son. All three were barefoot, with scrolls on their backs.

"Ame," Miho said in a soft, slightly rasping voice. "I did not think we would find you here still."

Ame's eyes fluttered to the tent for a brief moment. "I need to stay," she said softly. "For a season or so more."

"A season or so more!" Miho's daughter's eyes flew open and she reached out to grab Ame's hand. "You'll wind up bound!"

"Eri," Miho said firmly and her daughter's eyes fell. "I understand you were attached to your father," the woman continued. The word "attached" hung heavy, and Ame felt the weight of it.

"If you are back in the Spring," Ame said with a hopeful smile, "perhaps I could travel with you for a ways." Her eyes went up for the briefest moment to Miho's son, Reo, but when their gaze connected, Ame looked away with a faint blush.

The gesture wasn't lost on the woman, who smiled as she put both her hands on Ame's shoulders. "You will always be welcome among us, Ame-chan."

Ame smiled, trying to push away the terrible desire to pack up right then and there, regardless of the sleeping child in her tent and leave with them. They were going to the Land of Wind, and if she traveled with them, surely she would see friends and family she'd long gone without. She'd be able to feel the golden, fiery sands again and dance at the solstice festival and maybe… She stole a glance at Reo as she filled their canteens in the garden well.

As she watched them walk away from her, Ame's heart felt heavy. It had been three seasons already that she had been in that spot, almost a whole year. What if Eri were right, and she did get bound to that spot, trapped for all eternity? But her mind drifted to Reo and his pale blue eyes against his broad, dark face and she promised herself that before the next winter came, she would have wandered for a while beside him and maybe learned what it took to make his eyes dance.


	5. Winter

Ame sighed a she carefully set the last vase in the kiln. Winter had set in properly, so there was no gardening to be done and Kakashi had been away on a mission for over a week, so she had taken some fine clay from the river and decided to turn more vases for the medicines she sold at the stall. They weren't half as pretty as the ones her mother used to make, but she hoped they'd survive the firing.

After she closed the door, she pulled her cloak around her a little tighter. Her feet hadn't really gotten used to the heavy boots she'd adopted when the first snowfalls came, but she couldn't bear the thought of going back into the empty tent and whiling away the hours until bedtime so she went for a walk through the woods.

Up in the trees a small, brown bird began a sad song and Ame leaned up against the frosty trunk of a tree to listen to him. She was almost overcome with sorrow when something cold and wet hit the back of her head and exploded, throwing her forward a little. She spun around and found a giggling Kakashi hanging upside down from a tree branch with another snowball in his hand.

"I got you!" he said proudly, his eyes closed with mirth. She knew there was a wide smile under that blue mask, and it warmed her heart.

"Yeah," she said, pushing away her own sadness. "You got me. When did you get home?"

He dropped, twirled and landed gracefully in front of her. "This morning," he said, sliding his hand into hers. "Can we go into town today?"

"Again?" she asked, trying not to sound too weary.

"Please, please, pretty please," he asked, swinging her arm as he pulled her to the tent. "There's a movie playing this afternoon about a giant tortoise that attacks a village."

"A giant tortoise," Ame said slowly as she looked down at him with amusement before she relented with a smile. This was what she'd wanted, after all when she'd decided to stay. She'd wanted to see him behave like a normal little boy, and that was what he was doing.

It only took a few minutes for him to don his disguise, and then they were back off again, trudging through the deep snow, or at least she was. He walked up on top of it. "If you focus the chakra in your feet, you can do it," he said, reaching down to help her up after she stumbled again.

"Ugh, it's these stupid boots," she said as she dusted herself off and started walking again.

"In a few years, I'll be big enough and I'll carry you," Kakashi said.

She chuckled. "In a few years, you'll still be a little kid, Kakashi-kun. Oh, look, they've cleared the path up ahead." Smiling, she leaned against the snow, pushing harder that the sign of relief was at hand.

He managed to talk her into a double feature and ramen afterwards and she suppressed a giggle when Kakashi not only smiled, but also gave a little wave to Ichiraku's daughter, causing the little girl to blush scarlet. "What'd I do?" he asked, looking between the little girl's retreating back and Ame.

"Nothing," Ame choked from behind her hand. "I'll have to watch out for you when you get to be a teenager; make sure you don't break too many hearts."

Kakashi scoffed.

On the way back home, they passed a group of kids sledding downhill. Kakashi's eyes lit up and he grabbed Ame's hand, pulling her towards the place where several sleds leaned against a tree. "Who are these for?" he called out in his best version of a disguised voice.

A boy with shiny black hair and bushy eyebrows jumped up from the sled he was about to ride. "What a glorious evening for a sledding race, is it not!?" the boy said with his hands on his hips and a broad smile before he leapt forward in two bounds and leaned over to examine Kakashi's face. "You look extremely familiar, friend."

"Uhhh…" Kakashi looked up at Ame, sweat beads forming on his forehead, but she just chuckled.

"My little brother's pretty common looking," Ame said, ruffling Kakashi's dark wig. "This is Joji, and I'm Ame."

The other boy put his hand to his chest and said, "I'm Guy Might!" before sticking out a thumbs up and giving another dazzling smile. "Would you and your bother care to celebrate our youth by partaking in these glorious slopes?"

Ame looked down at Kakashi with raised eyebrows.

Kakashi coughed. "Actually, could I just borrow a sled for a while; I'll bring it back tomorrow."

Guy leaned in, turning his head to the side as he examined Kakashi from several different angles. Kakashi, in turn, squirmed slightly, leaning into Ame's side. "You have a most familiar face," Guy said after a few more awkward moments. Then, to Kakashi's relief he threw back his head and laughed. "Ah, the mysteries of life! Take the sled and grasp the beauty of this evening! Until we meet again!"

With that, Guy took a running leap and landed on the sled he'd been riding before, which tore off down the hill at a tremendous clip. Kakashi gave a heavy sigh, all his muscles relaxing for a moment. "That was close," he muttered as he took one of the sleds and lay it on the snow in front of them. "Get on."

"It's pointed the wrong way," Ame said with a smirk.

"Just get on," he repeated flatly.

With a chuckled, she sat on the sled, tucking her wraps around her carefully. "You getting on too?" she asked, but he just grinned and grabbed the rope. He starting running slow at first, until they were well out of eyesight of the other kids, and then he picked up the pace. His feet barely made prints in the snow as they flew over the pristine whiteness. Wind whipped around Ame's face, stealing her peals of laughter and throwing them through the woods. It reminded her of when she was a little girl and her father would put her on his back before he'd go leaping through the treetops. It was like flying.

He released the sled so that she slid to a stop into a large, fluffy snowbank near her tent, and she looked over her shoulder to see him nearly doubled over with laughter. "You… your… your hair!" he choked out between giggles.

Wordlessly, she hopped off the sled and walked into the tent to check a mirror. Her reflection drew a sharp laugh. The wind had swept up her hair, matting it into a mass, while the snow blanketed it.

"Now you really do look like my sister," Kakashi said mirthfully as he pulled off his wig and joined her.

"I sure do, little old man," she said, tousling his silvery locks.

"Little old man!" he looked up at her with his brows knit together. "First you call me 'kid' now 'little old man,' make up your mind, you crazy woman!"

She laughed, leaning down and planting a kiss on top his head. "You're both."

That night, after supper and the bedtime story that Kakashi had come to expect, they were laying out near the fire. Ame was snoring softly, but he watched the flames dancing in and out of the logs. "Ame," he said softly.

"Uhn," she muttered.

"Are you asleep?"

"Kinda…"

"Do you have to leave?"

"Not until the snow melts," she said in her soft, sleep-heavy voice.

"But do you have to leave?"

With a sigh, she propped herself up on her elbow. "Do you have to go on missions?" she asked, rubbing the corners of her eyes.

He nodded.

"It's the same thing," she said.

"No it's not," he said without looking at her. "I go on missions to keep the village safe. You're just leaving because that's what your mom's family does." There was bitterness and hurt in his voice that she hadn't heard for weeks.

She reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him close to her and cuddling him for a moment. "When I was your age, I wanted to stay here, with my father," she said softly. "I was afraid that he would disappear when we left, or that he'd forget about us."

He was silent as he nuzzled his head against her arm.

"But he never did," she said. "And we always came back. You know, you can't promise me you'll come back from your missions." The words hung heavy in the warm air.

"I know," he said.

"So you leave all the time too, and there's no guarantee either of us will be back here again," she said. "We have this moment. This time, and that's all we're promised."

She felt him nod and she leaned her head against his. "Don't worry about tomorrow, Kakashi-kun. Whatever will be, will be."


	6. Parting of Ways

Kakashi stopped mid-stride with a look of mild horror at the small blue flower at his foot. The violet's heart-shaped leaves pushed up through the thinning snow, revealing the dark brown soil around them. He fought the unreasonable desire to stomp the flower out and bury its broken body under a pile of snow.

In a week or so more, there would be no denying that spring had returned. Already the paths were clear of snow. The river had begun to flow freely even if the smaller creeks were still frozen. If he could have stopped the spring, though, and trapped winter forever in the Land of Fire, he would have.

With the thaw, his team had picked up more missions, and he'd been able to spend less time with Ame, but when he approached the area where her tent had been to find it empty, save the garden and her sealing up a large scroll, his heart felt as if it stopped. "What are you..?" he stared, his eyes were large and pleading.

"Well, the snow is almost gone," she said, gesturing around them with a weak smile.

"But were you…" his heart raced and his eyes stung. "You were going to leave without telling me?!"

"Kakashi-kun," she said softly, reaching out for him, but he pulled away. She sighed. "I've been talking about this for weeks and weeks now. You knew I was leaving."

His breathing quickened as he struggled to keep his composure. Ninja hide their feelings, he repeated over and over in his mind. He glared at her, a million questions piling up in his mind, but unable to pronounce any of them for fear of falling apart. A few moments more, and extra thirty minutes perhaps, and she would have been gone without a trace without even telling him good-bye. What was wrong with that crazy girl!?

"You have friends now, you told me," she said softly, leaning her head slightly to the side as her voice took on a maternal tone. "And there's Minato; he's been watching out for you."

He dug his nails into his palms. Everything she was saying was true. He'd known she was leaving. Obito and Rin had become friends of sorts. Minato was looking out for him. But it wasn't the same. It didn't somehow excuse her from just waltzing out of his life without so much as a goodbye. Why did people always do that?!

"I'll be back in a few weeks," she offered with a hopeful smile.

There was a spark of hope in his eyes. "A few weeks?"

She nodded. "There are four weeks in a month. I'll be back through in eight weeks to check on you."

"That's two months!"

She shook her head with a sad chuckle. "Two months isn't so long. You won't even have time to miss my properly."

He wanted to scream, "I miss you already and you're not even gone!" but he didn't. Instead, to his infinite horror, a single tear rolled down his cheek and sunk into the blue of his mask. He quickly wiped it away, anger flashing in his eyes as Ame reached out for him again, but this time she wasn't deterred and pulled him to herself, cradling him in her arms as she sat down on the ground with him on her lap. He tried to remain cold, but after a moment he melted into her arms feeling as if that were, perhaps, the last truly safe place in the entire world.

"Kakashi-kun," she said softly after several long minutes of silence. When he didn't respond, she took his hand into hers. Biting her finger with her free hand, she drew a squiggling circle into his palm with her blood.

"What's that?" he asked barely above a whisper as he looked down at the bloody symbol on his hand.

"That," she said softly, "will bring me back to you if you ever need me."

"Promise?"

She gave a sad chuckle, pushing back his unruly silver locks and planting a kiss on his forehead. "Promise," she said with a smile. "And in two months, I'll be right back here."

He walked her to the very border of the outlaying land of the village. It was more somber of a march than Ame would have liked it to be, but the most her attempts to get him to laugh earned her was a flat look. In the end, she crouched down beside him and pulled a small bundle out from her bag.

"What is it?" he eyed it suspiciously as she handed it to him.

"Well, open it and find out, silly," she said.

He untied the bow and opened it with a level of care quite unnatural for most six-year-olds and found the disguise he'd used so many times to go into town with her. Smiling, she tapped him on the nose, "Just in case Joji gets bored while I'm gone," she said.

For a long moment he looked down at the clothes, then gave a resolute nod and looked up at her with a forced smile. "Be careful traveling," he said. "If anyone tries to hurt you, drop the darkness jutsu and run. You'll get away."

"I'll remember that," she said, pulling him into one last hug. "You be safe too. I want to hear about all your adventures when I get back. Oh, and try to let Obito win now and then."

Kakashi scoffed and Ame ruffled his hair as she stood up. She adjusted the large scroll on her back. "Until we meet again, Kakashi-kun," she said with a smile as she turned and walked away. She didn't look back until she'd gone over a mile over the hilly, winding road. Of course I can't still see him, she thought, shaking her head at her own silliness. It was only eight weeks. Eight weeks after being held to a place for nine months.

Her feet felt light, even in the boots. It felt as if the air around her was growing warmer by the second. Spring, she thought as she opened her arms wide and gave a few springing steps. Spring was the most glorious, wonderful, beautiful season of all and she was blowing through it like the wind in the newborn leaves.

Ten miles down the road, she met up with Miho and her children. "So the Earth didn't swallow you up and keep you!" Eri said with a broad smile as she clapped Ame on the back.

Eri was about the same age as Ame, and they'd always been friends. The prospect of traveling with her for a while was welcome. "How was the solstice festival?" Ame asked softly as they began to walk again. Her eyes darted ever so briefly to Eri's older brother, Reo.

"You should have been there," Eri said with a dreamy sigh as she began to weave stories of everything that happened while Ame had been on her self-imposed hermitage in the woods. Every now and then, Ame would steal glances at Reo, who occasionally returned them with a faint, good-natured smile.

Yes, she thought to herself fighting against the rising blush, I will make his eyes dance yet.

Kakashi stood there in somewhat stunned silence. It wasn't exactly the same feeling of abandonment he'd felt when he found his father's lifeless body. No, Ame would be back. He trusted her for that; hung onto it like a talisman. But it still stung.

Part of him expected, as if by magic, that she would turn around before she went over the last hill, that her attachment to him would anchor her to that spot outside Kohona. The idea of just aimlessly wandering was as foreign to him as… He searched his mind. Flying? No, flying would be easier to understand.

Looking down at the clothes in his hand he shook his head. How was he supposed to go around town in that get-up without her? It wouldn't be any fun.

Fun?

For the first time in a long time he realized that was something that had become a priority to him. Even before his dad had died, he'd been a serious kid. He'd been the one more apt to studying and training than playing and goofing off. But she'd… changed him.

As he walked slowly back to the village he thought of the first time they'd sat and talked, after he'd found her covered in mud. She'd talked about her parents and how they'd influenced each other, changed each other. Maybe everyone does that, he mused as he tucked the disguise under his arm. He thought about his teammates and his sensei; it didn't seem they'd changed him, but maybe they had. Maybe even Guy had changed him, with his constant insane challenges. Maybe each person he'd met had added some element to the disguise he wore every day.

High up in the trees the birds began to sing and Kakashi stopped walking to look up at them. Eight weeks, he thought. Eight weeks is fifty-six days. Fifty-six days is less than a hundred. Anything can be tolerated for less than a hundred days. Can't it?


	7. To All and None

Seven Years Later…

The swish of the scythe against the golden wheat was almost a song in itself. Ame's bare feet walked slowly forward after each slice brought down a fresh mat of grain before her under the blazing sun. When she reached the end of the field, she paused, standing up straight and popping her back. Two dozen other workers, mostly nomads, were still cutting the vast expanse of wheat.

"Keep slacking off and you won't get rations," a sinister voice called out from the shadows of the trees. She didn't have to look up to tell it was Fumihiro. The pudgy man in his mid-twenties laughed like a swine guzzling slop and even without looking, Ame felt his greedy eyes on her. Wearily she took the scythe up again and turned to face another row.

"Are you okay?" a deep whisper called from behind her.

She glanced over at Reo, who was cutting a row away. His eyes met hers for the briefest moment. "I'll be fine," she said softly. "I hate this place."

"In a day or so," he said, his eyes trained on the scythe in front of him, "the wheat will be harvested and they will have no need for us anymore."

She said nothing, her raw hands gripping the scythe tighter as she swung hard. They've kept us trapped here so long; what makes you think they'll release us now?! she thought bitterly as her eyes filled with loathing.

"You should not hate," Reo reminded her gently.

It should have stung her, but it didn't. She hated the ninja that forced her people to work for them. She hated being trapped in that place for the last two years. She hated the stupid war and the stupid people who fought it. She even hated the grain.

"You still have your life," Reo continued. "And soon it will be truly yours again."

"Maybe," was all Ame said, but it seemed enough to satisfy him for the moment.

By the time the sun went down, they'd just finished clearing the field and Ame's hands were bleeding. She dropped the blood smeared scythe in front of the taskmaster's tent and turned to walk away when a sickly smooth voice called out, "I have salve for those wounds."

"I prefer to bleed," Ame said through clenched teeth as she glared at Fumihiro.

"I can arrange that too," he said with a perverse chuckle.

"Come on," Reo said softly, as he put his arm around Ame's shoulders and guided her away.

When they were safely out of earshot, Ame shrugged away from him. "We ought to rise up," she whispered.

Reo gave a tired sigh. "That's not our way."

"Maybe it's my way," Ame snapped back.

Reo looked down at her with a mixture of pity and patience in his eyes.

"You don't even know where your mother and your sister are," she said. "What if they're in a worse situation that us and we're just sitting here making this Village fat on our sweat?!"

"Ame," he said softly, reaching out to touch her arm, but she pulled away again. He straightened up, staring intently at her. "So what would you have us do? Go up against an army of highly trained ninja."

Ame scoffed as she thought of the pathetic men that were guarding them. "Highly trained ninja," she huffed. "I've seen monkeys more highly trained than they are."

"Well, I'm sure they couldn't have stood up to your father, but…"

"But he's not here right now," she finished his sentence spitefully. "I'm aware of that. It wouldn't even have to be him. There are children in the academies with more skill than these clowns. Don't you wonder why they're here, guarding us, while all the real ninja are out fighting?"

"Either way, none of us would be any match for them," he reminded her.

"Speak for yourself," she growled, kicking a clod of dirt ahead of her as they approached Reo's tent.

He stopped in the entranceway and took Ame by the shoulders, forcing her to look up at him. "Don't," he said firmly. "Even if you could, by some odd chance of fate, take all of them out, you would be an outcast. Forever."

It felt as if she melted slightly. What in impossible place to be in, she thought sorrowfully as she turned and walked into the tent. The coolness inside wrapped around her like a comforting blanket. How had everything gone so wrong?

She walked numbly to the bathroom and began to strip off the filthy clothes, her mind drifting to the past as the bathwater ran. It had been three years ago, back when she'd been thirteen, when she'd first made Reo's eyes dance.

If she thought hard enough, she could still remember the feeling of the cool sand between her toes as she'd danced before the bonfire, fully aware of the new curves her body had acquired. She remembered the way his eyes locked on hers, the warm feeling of desire and need that had welled up in her.

As she slid nose deep in the cool water, allowing it to sooth her sore muscles, she carefully dipped her ragged hands into the water. A soft hiss escaped her lips at the burn before it started to ease. There were lotus blossoms tattooed on the backs of her hands that marked her as a woman of her people.

She gave a sardonic chuckle as thought back to her mother's bare hands. Because she'd fallen in love with a ninja, her people would not allow her the lotus. Her hands weren't pure. She wasn't really one of them. Except that she was, in so many ways that Ame couldn't be. Her mother would have never dreamed of rising up against her oppressors. Her mother would have never mouthed off to her father the way she had to Reo. Groaning, she closed her eyes, pinched her nose and sank into the deep tub wondering, not for the first time, what it would be like to just drown there and not face the morning.

That night, as she lay curled up in Reo's arms her heart started to hurt again. It wasn't the first time, or even the strongest. For the last year and a half it had been hurting, calling her back to the Leaf Village.

Rising carefully, she padded out of bed and walked to the main room to sit by the dying fire. "Whatever it is, Kakashi-kun," she whispered as she wrapped her arms around her knees, "I hope you will have the strength to handle it, because I'm dying here." A tear fell.

She hated feeling so helpless and so trapped. Outside the canvas walls of the tent, she knew her captures were patrolling. If I were to use the darkness jutsu, I could escape, she thought, eyeing her own tent scroll that was leaned up against the wall. No one would think to go after one woman.

"And you'd just leave Reo here?" a cynical voice said inside her head and she sighed. No, she knew she wouldn't do that. He infuriated her with his acceptance of their fate, but she loved him and she knew that when the war was over and all this had passed, he would still be the one for her.

In even that, she failed to live up to the teachings of their people, she thought mournfully. There was no marriage amongst nomads. No permanent bonds between a set of people other than mothers and their children. She leaned her face against her knees as her tears flowed with the realization that he felt no tether holding his heart to hers. He loved her for the moment they had but if she were to leave in the night, he would accept it and move on.

"Attachments will bind you to this world," Miho had said as they tattooed Ame's hands. "You are a woman of the people now, belonging to all and to none."

"To all and none," Ame whispered as a log sparked.

They walked for what felt like a hundred miles before they stopped for the evening. Ame crumbled down against a tree, glaring up at the Fumihiro as he started to speak. "Pop your little tents quickly. There's still a little daylight left."

There were a smattering of groans from the crowd, but Ame simply rose, her sore muscles protesting as she walked up to Reo and put her hand on his shoulder, halting him from unsealing his scroll. "Sit for a while," she said softly. "We'll use my home for now."

"Isn't that sweet," Fumihiro's voice came from behind her and her hands tightened on her scroll band. "How'd a sexy, little thing like you ever wind up with such a weakling?"

Ame was about to say something, but Reo's hand went to her cheek and his eyes told her to stay silent. She fumed at him, but did her best to ignore Fumihiro's goading as she took the scroll off her back and laid it out before her.

When she leaned over, she felt a set of fat hands on her hips and she whipped around. Fumihiro gave her a gap-toothed grin before his hands went back to her hips. Without thinking she slapped him as hard as she could.

Her hand stung, but he just turned back to her slowly, chuckling as he rubbed the spot. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, you're a naughty one, aren't you? 'Violence poisons the soul'."

She was about to hit him again, but Reo stepped between them.

Fumihiro threw back his head and laughed. "So the weakling is finally going to stand up for his woman."

"She's not my woman," Reo said in a measured voice. "But she's not yours either. She's her own."

Fumihiro laughed even louder. "You people are hilarious. Tell me, girl, how many men have you slept with?"

Ame glared at him from behind Reo's shoulder.

"That's what I thought." Fumihiro's laughter died away to a chuckle. "Whenever you want a real man, come and find me."

Reo didn't move until Fumihiro had walked to the far side of the gathering. He turned to Ame, and started to say something, but she turned her attention to the scroll. Anger welled up in her. She wanted to kill Fumihiro, to watch him bleed out like stuck pig, but she was also angry with Reo. How dare he stand there and let that disgusting man talk to her like that after he'd laid his filthy hands on her body?!

All around her, people were setting up their tents quietly. There was something sickening about the fact that they all simply accepted this fate. They didn't buck against the guards the way she did. They let themselves be touched and whipped, driven and used without so much as a complaint. It made her want to shake sense into all of them. This wasn't life!

With a poof of smoke, the tent was summoned into being and she rolled the scroll, carefully sealing it again. She didn't even look back at Reo as she went inside and set the scroll to rest against a corner post. Closing her eyes, she inhaled the scent of her home, imagining that she were free again. Her heart ached sharply, but she couldn't tell if it were the blood pact calling her back to Kohona or her own broken spirit.

The one thing she knew was that this couldn't last much longer. Something other than just her spirit was breaking and very soon there would be a reckoning.


	8. Ghosts

Kakashi woke with a start, cold sweat dripping down his face, mingling with the tears that flowed freely from his mismatched eyes. Sitting up, he brushed the tears away, staring out at the empty room as he tried to regain his composure. His eyes went down to his hands and to his horror, they were covered in blood again.

Scrambling out of the bed and almost tripping over the blanket, he stumbled to the sink and turned the water on full blast. "Get off," he muttered through the tears as he desperately tried to rid his hands of blood that wasn't there anymore, that hadn't been there for the last three months. His breath came out in ragged gasps as Rin's face filled his mind.

"Kakashi," her lips whispered in condemnation.

He clutched the edge of the sink, focusing all his energy on not throwing up. The room spun wildly as his soul ached for what was entirely impossible, going back in time and saving her from himself.

When he'd regained some small amount of control, he slid on his sandals and walked out into the empty street. There was barely a moon out, but the path to the cemetery was so familiar he could have traveled it with no light at all.

He had put fresh lilies on her headstone that morning as if that would, in some way, atone for his transgression. Dropping to his knees at the edge of the grave, he put his hands in the new grass as if trying to reach her. "I am so sorry, Rin," he whispered.

The wind whipped up and curled around him, carrying with it a familiar chakra. Scarcely believing it, he looked up and saw Ame walking towards him. She was thinner than he remembered her, her long hair was cropped shorter than his, but it was her, walking through the cemetery like a ghost towards him. It had been almost three years since he'd seen her last, and he'd worried that she had been yet another casualty of the war.

She knelt beside him, pain and concern in her eyes as she reached her bandaged arms out and wrapped them around him. "Kakashi-kun," she said softly, almost like a prayer.

"W…where have you been?" he asked into her shoulder, too surprised to even wipe away the tears.

"Everywhere and nowhere," she said with a mirthless chuckle as she pulled away from him and studied his face. She carefully pushed up his forehead protector, drawing a sharp breath at the scar that ran down his face and the blood red sharingan eye that had replaced his slate colored one. "Where have you been?" she asked barely above a whisper.

"I…" he started, but his voice caught in his throat as tears he couldn't control began to flow again.

She pulled him close to her again, cradling him in her arms like she did when he was a small boy. "Shhh," she whispered, smoothing down his hair as she lay her head on top of his. "It's all over now." Her eyes went to the name on the headstone: Rin Nohara. Her heart broke a little more as her mind went back to one of the last times she'd been in Kohona.

She was sitting behind the tables at her stall in the market, when Kakashi, Obito, and Rin walked into view. Standing she'd waved them over, tossing them mangos as they grew closer. "Good to see you all back in one piece," she said as they thanked her.

"What time do you get off work?" Rin asked as she bounced on her heels.

Ame had glanced up at the sun, then looked around the market and shrugged. "Now. What's going on?"

Kakashi shot her a bored expression and Obito looked slightly nervous, but Rin clapped her hands together. "There's going to be a street fair!"

"Oh, by all means, the shop is closing," Ame said with a wide grin as she'd started to shut the shop down.

That night, as she'd watched the three teammates interacting, she'd leaned over to Kakashi and whispered, "You know she likes you, right?"

He had scoffed in the way that ten-year-old boys are apt to do whenever girls and feelings were mentioned in the same sentence, but she'd felt that maybe, in a year or so, Rin would have won him over.

All that was gone now, though.

The sobs slowly faded and his body relaxed into hers and she realized he had fallen asleep. Careful not to wake him, she did the tiger hand sign and body flickered them to her tent. She lay him carefully on the bed, gently slid his mask down, and took his forehead protector off, laying it on a chest near the door.

She sat beside him, watching his slow breathing. He'd grown so much since the last time she'd seen him; he was taller than her, but maybe a bit leaner. She knew for sure that the short distance she'd had to carry him from the cemetery would probably be the last time she'd ever be able to again. But when he was sleeping, his face still looked like it had when he was a little boy and she'd read him bedtime stories.

Leaning her head against the side of the mattress, she sighed. Her hands ached. Her body ached. Her spirit ached. And yet, she knew he was hurting so much more than she was. It was all the fault of the war. It had ruined everything and everyone it touched.

"Where are we going to go from here?" she whispered to him in the darkness, but only silence answered her.

He woke from a dreamless sleep with the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing where he was. His eyes still burned from the tears the night before, and as his vision came into focus, he was flooded with shame.

Pulling on his mask, he sat up, careful not to wake Ame, who was sleeping, half sitting-half laying down near the side of the bed. One of her bandaged hands was lying near his. Crusted plasma had seeped through the back of the bandages in the night. The smell of charred flesh still hung on her, and the thought that she hadn't seen a medic about her injuries yet was all that kept him from leaving without saying anything to her.

And yet, he wondered ruefully, what am I supposed to say? Yo, Ame, long time no see. Sorry about breaking down like a crazy person last night.

To his horror, she stirred. Had panic not become such an unwelcome companion in the last several weeks, he would have been shocked by the level that coursed through him. While he was caught between the terrible desire to run and the deep concern for her injuries, her eyes fluttered open.

She smiled weakly at him. "G'morning, Kakashi-kun," she said as she pushed herself up, wincing.

"When did your hands get burned?" he asked.

"Two weeks ago," she said, her gaze falling to the soiled bandages.

"What happened?"

She drew a deep breath. "The war," she said as she stood. "I need to change these, but then I'll make you breakfast."

Snorting, he stood up and gently grabbed her upper arm. He was almost a head taller than her now, she noticed. "Let me help you," he said.

She bit her bottom lip. "Fine," she said after a moment.

In the main room, he drew a basin of water and carefully unwrapped her bandages. "I'm sorry," he said softly as she winced. "I really need to bring you to the hospital."

"I hate hospitals," she said.

"I know. What about a medic?"

She glared at him over the bandages.

"They could get infected," he said. He unwrapped the right hand completely, and his jaw fell open for a second. The whole back of her hand was covered in third degree burns. Through them, though, he could see the faint traces of a lotus tattoo. It felt as if someone had stabbed him, but the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

"Your partner disowned you from the tribe," it was almost a question. Almost, but not quite.

Ame's eyes narrowed. "So you know everything about my people now?"

"Who burned your tattoos off?" he asked more directly.

"It was a mistake to come here!" she snapped back, pulling her hands from him as she stood up and walked towards the door.

"Then why did you?! It's been almost three years; why not stay away?" He was standing too now, waiting for her explanation.

She gave a choking laugh as she took a few steps back towards him, a burned finger pointed at him. "You think I wanted to stay away that long?! I've been a captive of the Village hidden in the Mist for almost two years! You want to know about my hands?! The man I love burned off my lotuses because I killed a man who was trying to rape me! Want to know about that?! I put him in darkness and I slit his throat! I'm a murderer and an exile and I have no home and no people and I was stupid enough to be worried about you!"

Storming out of the tent, she left him in stunned silence. She was grateful he didn't follow as she stalked through the woods they'd played in so often as children. In some ways, it had felt good to scream at him, to release everything that had been bottled inside her for weeks. In many more, though, she felt like a monster. The night before, she'd found him grieving for his friend, possibly his lover, and now she was attacking him.

Coming to the creek, she crumbled into the thick grass wishing the Earth would swallow her into its core. "You're not a monster," a male voice on the wind whispered to her.

Sitting up, she looked around, but saw no one.

"Kakashi-kun?" she called softly, but from out of the shadows of a large tree a pair of people emerged. The woman had her long, black hair pulled back in a loose bun. She was wearing a pink kimono and carrying a bouquet of flowers. The man beside her was wearing the uniform of a leaf shinobi. His dark eyes sparkled with merriment when they locked on to Ame's.

"Mom… Dad?" Her heartbeat quickened.

"Stay," her mother said softly, with the warmest smile before a breeze picked up and they were gone.

"Wait!" Ame called out after them, running towards where they'd been standing. "Don't go… I need you." Hot tears ran down her cheeks. "I need you," she whispered.

She walked back to her tent expecting Kakashi to be gone, but he was sitting by the fire, cooking breakfast. "I'm sorry," she muttered as she sat beside him.

"So am I," he said, glancing at her.

They fell into silence as he cooked, both lost in their thoughts. Now and then, he stole glances at her as she changed her bandages. Rage boiled inside of him for the injuries she'd sustained, but there was something else. Pain, jealousy..? He shook his head. That was stupid.

She looks so broken, he thought as he glanced at her again. "I like your hair," he said feebly, wincing at how dorky that sounded.

She gave a single chuckle. "Thanks, I call it 'Crazy Woman Got a Knife'. It was kind of an accident."

"You have an accidental haircut?" he asked slowly.

She nodded with a smirk, but didn't elaborate, and he didn't pry any further. It was good to see her smile, even if it wasn't really a full one.

Maybe things will get better, he thought. It was an impossibly long shot, but maybe.


	9. Nightmares

Ame's nerves tingled as her feet walked forward against her will. Something vague and fuzzy inside her mind told her it was a dream, but even knowing that didn't make it more terrifying. She was walking back to her tent, covered in rock dust and exhausted from the day of hammering into the mountain they were trying to make a pass through.

She looked down at her hands. Flawlessly intricate lotus blossoms mocked her. "Don't go in the tent," a voice inside her mind pleaded, but she couldn't make her body stop. She pushed back the flap and walked into the darkness.

And his hands were on her. One wrapped tight around her mouth, the other between her legs. She tried to close her legs, to pull away, but Fumihiro was stronger than she'd expected. Or maybe it was that she was weaker than she'd thought. "Let me go!" she tried to scream against the fat folds of his hand, but he laughed at her, pressing his bulbous lips against her neck.

"No one's going to hear you, little girl," he said before he bit her ear. "And no one's going to care. You think that so-called man you bed is going to stand up to me? I have it on good authority that right now he's in another woman's tent. You people fuck like rabbits."

Her mind raced as her body fought hard against him, but he ripped her dress open, exposing her flesh. His round, smooth fingers plucked hard on her nipple and she screamed. "You like that don't you, you little whore?" he growled into her ear. "I'm going to have fun breaking you."

In her panic, there was a second of clarity, and she did the hand sign for the darkness jutsu. Using his temporary confusion, she pulled away, grabbing the kunai she always kept strapped to her thigh. It had always upset Reo that she was armed, but she'd told him that a knife was a tool and this kunai was no different.

With one swift jab, she stabbed Fumihiro in the jugular. He grabbed for her hands, but she pushed it harder. She knew he couldn't see anything, but she could see shadows. She saw the terror in his eyes, the desperate, futile scramble to save himself. Hot, sticky blood poured out over her hand. His eyes rolled back into his head and he crumbled to the ground.

The jutsu fell and there rose the sound of running and commotion outside her tent. The door to her tent flew open and three Mist shinobi stormed in. Ame glared at them, quickly dropping the darkness again.

Her mind could only think of one thing. Find Reo. She ran past them, clutching the bloody kunai and not bothering to cover herself. The darkness was her cover, so long as she could keep it up. Searching the camp for his chakra signature, she found it, as Fumihiro had said, in the tent of another woman.

Pain stabbed at her heart, but she didn't dwell on it as she rushed inside and grabbed Reo by the arm. "It's me," she whispered, "come with me quickly."

"Where are you going? What's happening? Don't leave me!" the other woman begged, grasping in the darkness for him, but they were gone.

"What's going on? How can you see where we're going?" Reo asked as he stumbled behind her in the dark.

"This is my jutsu," she said as she pulled him harder, urging him to hurry. Her body ached as her chakra rapidly drained.

They made it over a rise and into a small valley when the darkness fell like a current and Ame crumbled with it. Her breath came out in ragged puffs as she tried to focus on simply staying conscious.

She looked up and saw that Reo was looking at her with disgust and fear. Blushing slightly, she adjusted her dress so that her breasts were covered, but the blood from her right hand smeared over the light fabric.

"What have you done?" he said barely above a whisper.

"Fumihiro tried to rape me," she said, her voice quavering.

"You spilled blood." Reo's eyes were locked on the kunai.

"He tried to rape me," she said a bit more firmly, anger boiling up inside her.

"Our people will suffer for your bloodlust! Do you think they'll just overlook one of us killing one of them? Did you ever stop to think how many of our people would die because of you?!"

"Reo?" Tears flooded her eyes, blurring her vision.

He said nothing as he went to work building a fire. "Run," Ame's mind screamed to her aching body, but she couldn't quite believe that he would ever really follow through with banishment. "He loves me," her heart told her. "He has never hurt anyone before in his life. He couldn't hurt me. Could he?"

The flames grew and yet, she still didn't want to believe until he walked up to her. "Can you stand?" he asked in a cold voice she barely recognized.

"Reo, don't do this," she pleaded. "You can just let me go. I won't ever do anything like that again."

He put his hands under her arms and lifted her. Panic coursed through her veins again and made the hand sign for the darkness jutsu, but her chakra was too drained.

"Are you going to kill me too?" he asked flatly.

"You don't have to do this," she said as her body went limp in his arms. "I won't hurt anybody else, Reo, please, please don't hurt me."

Rough hands turned hers over so that the backs were exposed to a burning log, but before he pushed them down the dream shifted far off its normal course and instead of burning her hands he was choking her. She put her hands to his trying to pry them off, but he was so strong…

Her eyes opened as she desperately gasped for air, but it wasn't Reo above her. "Ka…kashi," she barely wheezed out, slapping his cheek to wake him as her vision began to fade.

Instantly his hands released her and he scrambled back, horror flooding his face as he looked at his palms. "Ame?!" he gasped, looking up at her with tear-filled eyes. His whole body trembled.

As the terror drained from her, her heart broke for him. They'd fallen asleep in front of the fire, talking about better days. She remembered laughing at the shock in his face when she'd lay her head down on his chest and teased him that she would have to make him fat so he would be a better pillow.

But now he was gasping as he stared at his hands, his mind a million miles from the tent. "Kakashi-kun," she said softly. "It was a bad dream. Dad used to have them now and then. I'm okay."

She reached out for him, but he pulled away, standing quickly. "I could have killed you," he said without looking at her.

She stood up as well. "But you didn't," she said, moving so that he was forced to look at her.

"But I could have," he said, his gaze locking on hers. "I have to go."

"Please don't," she said as he made his way to the door flap.

For a moment he paused, and she thought he would say something, but he shook his head and walked out into the night. "Go after him," a small voice whispered in her mind, but she didn't know what she would say. Her fingers went up to her neck and she whimpered. There was going to be a bruise there.

She sank back onto the rugs. Another bruise. Another scar. Another nightmare. So this was what life was becoming.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi leaned up against a tree just outside the front entrance of Ame's tent. He'd walked almost to the cemetery when he realized that he couldn't just leave the way he had.

But he couldn't stay either.

The nightmare he'd been having, strangling a Sand ninja that had caught him off guard, had felt so real. When she'd managed to wake him and it was her face, filled with terror, looking up at him, one more piece of his already damaged soul broke. It was Rin all over again. His hands had almost ended another woman who was close to him.

He looked down at his hands. In the moonlight the callouses seemed to glow. He'd lost track of how many people those hands had killed over the years. Looking at the tent, he thought, "If she thinks she's a murderer for defending herself, what would she consider you?"

A chill ran through him. He didn't need to hear it come from her lips, because he'd heard it enough in town. "Friend-killer Kakashi," they started calling him. It was whispered as he walked by women who quickly hustled their children away from him, shielding them as if he were some boogie man. It was what the other ninja whispered whenever they had the misfortune to be teamed with him. "You know," he'd heard one man say softly when they thought he was sleeping, "he'll even kill one of us if it means completing the mission."

He'd told himself that they didn't know. They hadn't been there. They hadn't seen the way she threw herself in front of his attack. "And what did Ame do to get in your way?" a sinister voice inside his mind asked.

Groaning, he leaned his head back and looked at the stars. Any stupid dreams he'd had before the war; any faint glimmer of hope that had be sparked when she'd lay her head on his chest and giggled an hour ago, it was gone.

His eyes stung but he refused to cry. Clenching his jaw, he drew out his kunai and spun it on his finger as he watched the stars. Her hair smelled like jasmine and sandalwood. Her skin had been so warm and soft…

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind. He was a weapon, a tool in the hand of the village just like the kunai on his finger. There wasn't enough of the human side of him left to ever hope for some kind of happy ending. This wasn't one of Ame's fairy tales.

In the morning, he was still sitting there, wide awake, when Ame walked out into the garden. He rose quickly, fumbling with the kunai as he pocketed it.

"Were you there all night?" she asked with that sweet smile that tore at his heart. It hurt more for the blue-black bruises that were shading her neck.

He nodded. "I needed to see you this morning; to apologize for last night and see if you were okay." Could you sound any more cold? his inner voice chided him.

"You didn't have to sleep out here…"

"I didn't," he said. "I should get you some ice from the village for your neck and your hands."

"Kakashi-kun…"

The honorific stung, even with all its familiarity. "Can I get you anything else while I'm there?"

"No," she said softly. Her smile was gone now and her eyes looked empty as they stared down at the mallow flowers in the garden.

There were a hundred things he wished he could have said in that moment. "It will never happen again," but it could. "I never meant to hurt you," but the bruises obviously showed that he had. "I love you…"

Self-hatred bubbled up inside him. It didn't matter that he loved her so much it ached in his bones. It didn't matter at all, because the only thing he could ever bring her was pain.

"I'll be back in a little bit," he said. He turned to walk away, then paused and walked back to her. His trembling hand went up to her cheek and he feared that he would never find his voice. His fingers gently moved down her jaw to her neck, light as a butterfly over the angry bruises. "For as long as I live, I don't ever want to hurt you again," he said softly and then vanished.


	10. A Little Light Reading

Ame stood in shock as the smoke cleared around her. Where did that come from? a trembling voice inside her head asked. One minute she was talking with her childhood friend and a second later a strange, young man was standing before her, touching her the way a man touches a woman he cares for. She leaned back against the tent post with a huff, her brows knit together as she tried to put the pieces together.

It was hard… no, impossible, to see Kakashi as anything but a little boy. He'd been her closest friend when they were children. He was the one she'd caught fireflies with, the one she'd sledded with in the winter and swam with in the summer. He was the one she'd cuddled and read bedtime stories to, pretending that they were a happy, little family, and with one small gesture he'd shattered it all.

A stabbing pain shot through her. There was going to be no easy way to tell him that whatever it was he felt, she did not. Three weeks before, she'd shared a bed with Reo. It felt like her soul was still meshed with his, even after what he'd done. It was a burn that went deeper than her hands and at times felt as if it would steal her air and kill her because she knew there was no going back.

And there's no going forward either, she thought as she stood and went back into the tent. What had she been thinking, laying her head on his chest the night before? It had been such a simple gesture, one she didn't even think of, one they'd done a thousand times before.

A thousand times, three years before, she reminded herself. Back when he was ten and she was thirteen. But now he was taller than her, his voice would crack now and then, but for the most part it was deeper than she'd remembered it.

I was an idiot, she chastised herself as she set to work unwrapping her hands.

An hour later a voice came through the walls of the tent. "Ame?" Kakashi called.

She opened the tent and stuck her head out to find not only him, holding a small icebox, but a medic nin beside him. Had things not ending so awkwardly before, she would have scowled at him, but as it was, she simply sighed. "Come in," she said, holding the flap open and Kakashi and the young woman into her home.

"I'm Akari," the medic said. "May I see your hands?"

"Fine," Ame said, staring at Kakashi with the medic unwrapped her hands and tended to the wounds. He didn't meet her gaze, but the expression on his face wasn't one of shyness or even embarrassment over what he'd done. There was something empty in his eyes.

Maybe he's ashamed of what he did, she thought. Perhaps he really did love Rin and that gesture had been a momentary lapse of reason caused by lack of sleep and the shock of the night before. In some small way, that was more comforting to Ame than the idea that he'd actually been harboring some kind of deeper affection for her. It would spare them both a world of pain.

"There isn't any infection," Akari said. "But if you'd have gotten this seen before now, we could have spared you a lot of scarring."

"I'm fine with scars." Ame father's words from long ago went through her mind and she found herself repeating them, "They remind you of what you survived."

For the briefest moment Kakashi looked at her, then his gaze moved back to the rugs. The soothing flow of chakra from the medic's hands into Ame's damaged ones brought relief, although a new kind of pain crept in. She felt as if a gulf had formed between she and her friend.

"Well, I'm done here," Akari said with a smile as she finished rewrapping Ame's hands. As loath as Ame was to admit it, her hands did feel better after the other girl's treatment.

"Thank you," Ame said as Akari stood to leave. To her surprise, Kakashi walked out with Akari and continued to follow her down the path.

"Kakashi?" Ame called after him and he halted, turning halfway as he looked at her with his heavy-lidded dark eye, waiting. "Will you be back for supper?"

"Not tonight," he said. "I have a mission in the morning. I'll check on you as soon as I return."

With that, he turned and followed Akari back to town. Ame watched as he walked over the rise of a hill and disappeared from view. "I must have misread him earlier," she muttered to herself as she went back into the tent. She felt like an idiot.

Walking to the trunk where she kept her parents keepsakes, she knelt down. Carefully, she lifted the top and peered inside. It had been years since she'd looked in there. There was her mother's spring kimono with the purple blossoms embroidered into the silk. She ran her bandaged fingers over it with a faint smile. There were her combs and her fan, her favorite book of poems, and a sketchbook in which she had sketched new plants she'd discovered and their properties.

On the other side of the chest were her father's things. Mostly they were utilitarian. His spare jonin vest, a stack of shuriken, a roll containing several well sharpened kunai. She moved these until she found what she was looking for: a small, green, hardback book that was tattered at the edges. "The Way of the Leaf Ninja," was printed in faded black hiragana.

Closing the chest, she took the book and sat beside the fire as she opened it. She knew that it was a strange thing she was thinking of doing. Her mother would have never approved. The idea of starting the Academy at sixteen was almost laughable, and yet…

There was no other place she could go. It was true that she could have spent the rest of her life living on the outskirts of the village and working her stall, but after years of having been immersed in the traditions of her mother's people that life felt empty. She needed a purpose, and identity.

She couldn't go back to being a nomad. She'd spilled blood. Her hands bore witness to her banishment and anyone who saw them would know they could not walk with her. She didn't belong to all anymore. Now she belonged to no one. No, she thought fiercely as she drew a determined breath, now I belong to myself.

The night before, after Kakashi had left, she'd lay awake for hours thinking. Their nightmares had overlapped. All the traditions in the world hadn't kept her safe from the horrors of war. In this world, there was no escaping violence, even in a situation so innocent as her falling asleep near her dearest childhood friend. And if there were no escaping such violence, Ame decided she would meet it head on.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi walked through the marketplace with his hands deep in his pockets and his mind deep in thought. Ame's hands would be fine and so long as he stayed away from her, Ame would be fine too. Akari had been kind or naïve enough not to ask about the bruises on the other girl's neck. Not that it would matter if she found out; everyone already thought he was a monster.

From a food stall, Guy called out to him, but he barely even registered the rare, friendly greeting. He walked on in silence, not trusting his voice. Even the noise of the marketplace seemed dull and distant.

He stopped by a book store when a title caught his eye. "How a Ninja Should Die." He picked up the volume and was about to turn it over when a flash of brown hair caught his eye and he turned to see Rin walking through the crowd. The book fell to the ground as he desperately scanned for her.

His chest felt empty and his eyes stung. Idiot, his mind chided him as he bent down and picked up the book. She's gone and she's not coming back.

Handing the vendor his money he tucked the book under his arm and walked towards his apartment. It was a cheap, single room with a bath, nothing like the home he'd grown up in, but that house had been too big, too expensive to keep. Too empty and yet full of ghosts.

Climbing the stairs, he mustered the energy to give a little wave to old woman Nayura, who was so gave him a wide, toothless smile as she watered the poppies on her windowsill. "That young Hatake is such a serious boy. It'd do him some good to be around other children," she gibbered aloud as if she were talking to someone. Kakashi wasn't sure if she were senile or simply lonely, but she did that a lot.

Maybe that was what old age was like. There were so few truly old people in the village, he wouldn't know. As he pushed open the creaking door to his apartment, he silently prayed that he wouldn't live that long.

Leaning up against the wall, he sat on his lumpy mattress, opened the book and began to read. "To live as a ninja is to devote oneself and one's life sole to one's village. In so much as one's life is devoted to one's village, one's death is just as important…"


	11. Fate

The hokage's office was larger than Ame had expected. Not that she'd really allowed herself to dwell on what she was about to do. The Lord Forth's assistant ushered her in, with a simple, "Ame Shinrinyoku to see you, my lord," and then the door was shut behind her and she stared across the chasm at the youthful face of the Forth Hokage.

A minute passed as she tried to gather her erratic thoughts and still her nerves. He stood and her mind screamed at her a reminder to bow. Bowing low, she said quickly, "Lord Hokage, I come for permission to enter the Academy. I know I'm older than most other applicants, but I've studied and have some training."

Although she was still staring at the floor, she could see the tips of his toes as he walked up before her. "You're Nichibotsu Shinrinyoku's daughter, right?"

"Yes, my lord," she said, fighting the trembling her body.

"Your father was a talented ninja," he said. "I often wondered why he didn't let you into the Academy at a younger age, but I understand it went against your mother's customs."

"Yes, my lord," she repeated wondering if this man knew everything about everyone in the village, even those who only lived there occasionally.

"You can stand up, Ame," he said.

She stood, but her gaze did not meet his.

"You are frightened of me." The hokage walked around her, surveying her. "You have very little chakra, and even less control of it; essentially no formal training; rudimentary ninjutsu and genjutsu skills; essentially no taijutsu, which is a pity as you have so little chakra."

Ame swallowed hard. He was going to send her away. She was of no value to the village at all. Of course she wasn't. Her eyes stung.

He stopped in front of her. "I didn't hear you walk in," he said.

"I… I'm sorry?" In her surprise, she glanced up at his face and found that he wasn't looking at her with disapproval at all. There was a faint smile on his lips and a kindness in his eyes.

"You are exceptionally silent on your feet. That, coupled with your level of chakra, may prove to be an asset in espionage, provided you have the right training. Your request to be admitted to the Academy is accepted."

Ame's eyes lit up and she fought against the urge to throw her arms around the imposing form before her and thank him from the bottom of her heart. "Thank you, Lord Fourth," she managed to say in a somewhat even tone.

The corner of his mouth quirked up for a brief moment. "Ame," he said as she turned to leave. "I understand you are living outside the village in the woods. All kunoichi of this village live within the village walls."

A wave of panic washed over her. "Within the village walls?" she repeated.

"Will that be a problem?"

Her mind raced from the fact she'd never lived inside a village to the fact she had little money for an apartment to her overwhelming connection to the place she considered home. "No sir," she lied softly.

He around her and opened the door. "Baiko," he called and a second later, his assistant was standing before them. "Ame Shinrinyoku will be moving to the village. Please add her to the orphan fund list, see that she has help finding appropriate housing, and make sure she has what she needs for the Academy."

"Yes, my lord," Baiko said. Turning to Ame the young man said, "Well, come along."

Baiko walked through the streets at a fast clip. He seemed to only be a year or so older than Ame, but was so serious and curt that he seemed much older to her. He talked as quickly as he walked, "The orphan stipend is only $100 a month, which I don't need to tell you won't cover very much, but there are an awful lot of you, especially with this war. It will only cover you until you pass the Academy or turn eighteen as well, so I'd suggest you get a job. What are you good at?"

"I have a stall in the market," she said.

"Excellent, keep that up," he said, pushing open the door to a large, salmon-colored building. "There are quite a few Academy students who live here. The rent is $75 a month for the room, so you can see where you'll need the extra job, but that will cover your electric and water bill. It's a single room, half bath. There's a public bath down the street. What size do you wear?"

"Excuse me?" Ame choked.

"What size? I'm supposed to get you equipment." His eyes roved over her bare feet and long yukata. "You'll need clothes you can move freely in."

"I can move freely in these," she said, getting slightly annoyed with him.

He shrugged. "You are already starting the Academy at a disadvantage. Most of the children there will be almost ten years your juniors, it would be terribly embarrassing to be shown up by a seven-year-old, would it not?"

"I'll get my own clothes," she said firmly.

He shrugged again as he approached the main office and rapped on the door. After a few minutes of talking with the middle-aged woman who managed the apartments, they were walking into a small apartment. The stucco was cracked and there were tiles missing from the floor, but it was clean. The far wall was covered in a large window with a wide sill. Walking over to it, Ame looked out over the city.

Behind her, Baiko and the woman were discussing rent arrangements, but Ame didn't care. "I'll take it," she said without turning around, just loud enough that they knew she was talking to them.

"Wonderful," the woman said. Her following words were lost on Ame, but a few moments later, a silver key was in Ame's hand and both the manager and Baiko were gone.

There was nothing in the apartment except Ame and a small cabinet near the window that had a ceramic sink and a single stove burner. The blue walls clashed with the red tiles of the floor and the yellow-ish tint of the cabinets. Everything in the place screamed bulk economy, and it was as foreign and cold a place as she'd ever been in and she had a hard time imagining the place ever feeling like home.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi ran through the tree branches, leaping from limb to limb. A mist ninja followed close behind him and he spun in midair. "Chidori." Lightning built in his palm, but through the crackling electric pulses he saw, not the face of the male enemy behind him, but Rin.

"Kakashi." Her voice was colder than he remembered.

"Kakashi." The blood dripped down her lips.

"Kakashi." Her rage filled eyes bore into his soul.

The lightening flickered and faded as he fell to the forest floor, suddenly facing an army of the clones of the mist ninja.

Another figure dropped from the treetops and a moment later the clones were dispelled with a single, powerful jutsu. Guy. Kakashi gave a mirthless chuckle as his body wracked against the urge to pass out. Rin's face was still burned into his mind's eye, but it wasn't the kind Rin he'd known so long.

No, this ghost Rin loathed him, and he deserved it. She would kill him, steal the breath from his lungs, strangle his fast beating heart in her cold hands. The forest floor spun.

"Kakashi!" Guy called, running to his rival. "Get a hold of yourself!"

It was the last thing Kakashi remembered before he blacked out.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

He woke late the next day in a hospital room. The sun was low over the horizon. "Oh good, you're up," Akari's chipper voice called. She set the chart down in its holder.

"Why am I here?"

"Battle fatigue," she said with a grin. "Don't worry, you'll be right as rain in a day or so. Can I get you something?"

He shook his head.

"Well, call if you need anything," she said and left the room.

He dug into his bag and pulled out his copy of "How a Ninja Should Die." For the next hour, he was engrossed in it. The author made sense. A ninja must die in combat. It was the only honorable outlet.

Battle fatigue, he scoffed. Somehow or another he would have to get over killing Rin if he ever hoped to die in battle. And he wanted to die in battle sooner rather than later.

He didn't even hear anyone come in, but suddenly he was aware that his sensei, the Lord Fourth, was standing in front of his window, looking down at Kakashi.

"Minato Sensei! I mean… Lord Fourth…" Kakashi said, sitting up straight.

"I came here today," Minato said, his voice firm as he stared at his young pupil, "to assign you to the ANBU under my direct control."

"Yes, Lord Fourth," Kakashi said with a bow.

"Report tomorrow," Minato said as he turned and left.

Kakashi sat, staring down at the book he'd hastily dropped when Minato suddenly appeared. It was unlike his old sensei to be so formal and cold. Perhaps becoming hokage had changed him. Or perhaps, Kakashi thought, he hates me like all the others for killing her.

Either way, it didn't matter anymore. ANBU died at a higher rate than normal ninja. He would get his wish.

"Well, it looks like the hokage pulled some strings and sprung you early," Akari said with a grin as she brought in his release papers. "I'm off tomorrow if you want me to go with you to check on your friend."

He looked up at her questioning.

"Ame?" Akari chuckled. "The girl in the woods. About her hands."

"Oh," he said. "I have to work tomorrow, and she's not very fond of medics."

"I see," Akari said. "Well, do you think you could convince her to come in? I really think with another couple of treatments her hands would get better much more quickly."

"Maybe," was all he would commit to; Ame was stubborn.

When he left the hospital that was the first place he went, though. There were still a few hours of daylight left, and he promised himself that even if he stayed for supper, he would leave before it got much later.

He was thinking of how he could convince her to see Akari when the clearing came into view and he froze. There was a large, empty space in the middle of the garden. She was gone.

Ever since the first time she'd tried to leave without telling him and had seen how upset it made him, she had made a point of always waiting for him to get back so she could tell him goodbye before she left. He scoured the abandoned campsite, but found no traces of struggle.

She'd gone on her own accord.

Tears burned the edges of his eyes, but he blinked them away. It's better this way, he thought. He was ANBU now. Even more so than normal shinobi, ANBU did not let their emotions cloud their judgement. They did not form attachments. They were elite weapons in the hands of the hokage.

Some day she would meet a man who treated her like she deserved to be treated, one who could fall asleep in her arms without threatening her life, one who still had a human heart to give her. She would be happy and have a house full of children and laughter. She would grow old and die peacefully in her sleep.

And Kakashi would die in battle.

This was fate.


	12. Firsts

"A kunoichi must adapt herself to her surroundings and blending seamlessly into the culture she is infiltrating." –The Way of the Leaf Ninja

Ame scowled as she looked at her reflection in the mirror and pulled at the hem of her short skirt. She had spent the better part of Sunday morning in the marketplace watching the kunoichi her age and had come to the conclusion that her yukata was both incredibly formal and slightly old-fashioned by comparison.

So she'd bought black leggings, a short, blue skirt, and a sleeveless top that fit tighter than anything she'd ever worn before. To complete the ensemble she had a pair of ninja sandals. Even with their open toes, she didn't feel truly comfortable in them.

Then again, none of this is really comfortable, she though ruefully as she tugged at the skirt again. But she did look like the other village girls her age, and she could move freely in it. With a determined nod, she turned from the mirror and picked up her books and hurried out the little apartment.

She told herself it was silly to be so nervous. As Baiko had noted again when he went to bring her entrance papers the afternoon before, most of her classmates would be children much younger than her. He'd given her a glimmer of hope, though, that perhaps she could graduate early as she already knew some of what was covered.

Unbidden, her mind went back to the last part of their conversation. "Baiko-san, do you know Kakashi Hatake?"

"I know of him," Baiko said with a look of mild surprise.

"Do you know where he lives?"

Baiko pursed his lips. "No, I'm not sure," he said after a moment, "but if I were you, I wouldn't go looking for him."

At the front office, she handed the receptionist her papers. "Shinrinyoku?" the woman said, looking between Ame and the papers. "You will report to practice field two for assessments."

Ame's stomach dropped. She was going to be tested so soon? "Thank you," she managed to say as the woman handed her the forms back.

Her feet felt too heavy in the sandals as she made her way out onto the fields. She was searching for the sign for field two when a red-haired woman seated on top a target caught sight of her and started waving erratically. "Ame-chun!?" she called out, leaping down.

"Yes, ma'am," Ame said, a blush rising to her cheeks.

"I'm Kushina, and my husband asked me to see what you've got," the woman said with a broad smile. "Don't be nervous, 'kay?"

Ame nodded.

They went through target practice, katas, and a few jutsu before Kushina announced a break for lunch. "Do you like ramen?" Kushina asked.

"It's okay," Ame said.

"Okay?" Kushina looked shocked. "Obviously you've never had it at the right place before. I'm buying."

"So tell me about yourself," Kushina said as they sat next to each other at Ichiraku's.

Ame shrugged. "There's not a lot to tell."

"Come on! Minato tells me you were raised a nomad; that had to be interesting."

"Minato… as in Hokage Minato-sama?"

Kushina gave a loud laugh. "One in the same! That's my husband. Don't let all the hokage stuff get to you. He's a giant teddy bear. So what was it like, traveling the world, meeting all kinds of interesting people?"

"It was…" Ame searched for the right words as she swirled the noodles with her chopsticks, "nice while it lasted."

"Hmm," Kushina said. "So what made you want to join the Academy? I mean, most girls your age are either already ninja or thinking about starting families."

"My father was a ninja and I thought as I'd spent so much time in my mother's culture, I really ought to know his too." It wasn't exactly a lie. It wasn't exactly the truth either.

"Well, this isn't a cultural exchange program, if you know what I mean. If you graduate the Academy and become a genin, you'll be bound to the village. It's not something you can just decide to quit doing."

Ame nodded. "I know."

Kushina studied her for a long moment, then smiled. "I think you'll do really good though, you've got a lot of spunk under that timid exterior. I can tell!"

"So what other tests do we have to do?"

"Well, Minato just wanted me to see how you stacked up. Were you really a rookie rookie or did you have a few skills tucked away there."

A few moments passed as they ate in silence before Ame asked, "And?"

"And you definitely don't belong in the beginners' class. There's a class of older kids who are brushing up for their chunnin exam, and I think that's where you ought to be."

Ame almost choked on a bite of noodles. "But, I've never been to the Academy a day in my life!" Ame said after she recovered. It was one thing to imagine sitting in a room full of little kids, it was a total different one to imagine being with full-fledged ninja her own age who were studying to such an important test. She would be the class dunce.

"Don't look so scared! They don't bite!" Kushina laughed. "Do you actually know any ninja?"

"I know Kakashi Hatake," she said with a smile. "And I knew Obito and Rin, and I've met Guy and Genma and Ebisu and…"

"Okay, so you know a few people," Kushina chuckled. "Obito, Rin, and Kakashi were actually my husband's students. Did you know that?"

Ame nodded.

"He's got a lot of issues, Kakashi." Kushina's face grew sad. "He needs friends right now."

"Do you know where he lives?" Ame asked quickly.

Kushina chuckled. "Not off the top of my head, but I'm sure I can find out."

"I'd appreciate it," Ame said. "Everything the last few days has been a bit of a blur and I realized yesterday that if he came back, he may think I left without telling him bye."

"I'll see what I can do," Kushina said with a knowing smile, pushing back her bowl. "Well, let's get you back to the Academy; can't have you slacking off your first day!"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The lightning crackled in Kakashi's hand as he stared at the dummies in the ANBU practice field. "Chidori!" he called as he struck one, ignoring Rin's face as it flashed before his eyes.

"Chidori!" She spoke his name, but the lightning grew.

"Chidori!" Her image began to fade.

"Chidori!" But her voice still whispered his name.

"Chidori!"

The dummies exploded as soon as he'd cleared them. Through the smoke, from the far side of the field there was a slow clap and Kakashi looked up with a fierce gaze in his eyes. "Nicely done," Minato said.

"Lord Fourth," Kakashi knelt before him.

"My wife came home with a strange request today. She wanted to know where you live," his former sensei said.

Kakashi did not look up.

"Apparently there's a new girl at the Academy, some Ame Shinrinyoku, who says she knows you…"

It felt as if Kakashi's insides had turned to ice.

"Do you know her?"

In that moment he wanted to do nothing more than lie, but knew Minato would see right through it. "I do," he said. "But she's better off not knowing where I live."

Minato nodded and turned to leave, then paused. "You'll be leaving on a mission tomorrow evening. I suggest you get everything in order before then."

Kakashi understood the weight of his words. Perhaps his wish would be granted. He should tie up any loose ends.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

There was a light rap on Ame's door. She climbed down from the step stool she was using to hang tapestries and opened it without asking who it was.

"Kakashi-kun!" she said, impulsively hugging him. He winced a little when her arm brushed against the shoulder that had just been tattooed with the ANBU symbol, and she pulled away, checking it. "It suits you," she said, stepping back at bit to study it.

As she did, he looked at her in shock. He'd never seen her in so much as a knee-length dress, much less the latest kunoichi fashions. Her bare arms alone made his knees go weak and to his horror, he felt a blush rising in his cheeks. "Your n-new clothes s-suit you too." Stuttering?! Seriously?! His mind screamed. He gave a small cough. "I thought you'd left."

"I'm sorry about that," she said. "I thought your mission would be longer, and I knew if I didn't go then, I'd lose my nerve."

He pursed his lips beneath the mask. "You should drop out," he said.

"Drop out? I just joined. As in, today was my first day!" Ame stared at him, waiting for an explanation, but he didn't give one so she pressed on. "Why on Earth would you ask me to drop out!?"

"There's a war going on; in case you haven't noticed. You'll get yourself killed."

"In case you haven't noticed, you just apparently joined up with ANBU so it's not like you have room to talk!" She folded her arms across her chest, glaring at him.

"I was raised in this life. I graduated the Academy before I met you," he fought to keep his voice level as he stared at her. "You, on the other hand, are injured and a complete rookie."

"Your sensei's wife begs to differ!" Ame snapped.

A man poked his head out two doors down. "You two mind keeping it down out there? There are people trying to sleep here?"

Ame blushed brightly. "Get in here," she said, pulling Kakashi into the apartment after her and slamming the door behind them.

He looked around in stunned silence. She'd hung tapestries from the ceiling and all the walls, making the inside of her tiny apartment look so much like her tent that it was almost uncanny. Lanterns sat on the windowsill and a plush bed covered in blankets and pillows was against the wall. It was as stark a contrast to his utilitarian apartment as possible.

"I will not quit!" she hissed firmly. "And not you, or anyone else will make me."

"You need to go see Akari about your hands," he said.

Ame looked at the bandages, and reluctantly nodded. If she were going to embrace the life of this village, one thing would be going through the proper medical channels.

Kakashi looked at her with a mixture of relief and shock. She'd agreed entirely too quickly. "Why are you doing this?"

"I can't very well train with injured hands," Ame said flippantly as she opened the cupboard. "Have you eaten already?"

"No, I don't mean seeing Akira," he shook his head, "I mean this." He gestured around the apartment and then waved his hand towards her to indicate her new clothes. "This isn't you."

"I'm not me anymore, Kakashi-kun," she said softly. "For sixteen years I lived as one of my mother's people. I traveled with them. I lived their ways. But I can't do that anymore." A tear rolled down her cheek and she angrily brushed it aside, looking up at him with the fire rekindled. "It's time to learn my father's ways."

"Your father wouldn't have wanted you putting your life on the line in the middle of war," he said.

"Don't pretend to know my father better than I do," Ame said, but her voice was more measured this time. "Do you want supper?"

"Ame?"

"What?"

He stared at her for a long moment, unsure what he should say. "Fine, supper would be nice," he said softly.

She gathered the ingredients silently and went to preparing it while he watched. He walked to the window and looked out over Konoha. "I'll be leaving on a mission tomorrow."

"How long?"

He shrugged.

"How did you know I was here?"

"The Lord Hokage told me," he said.

"Oh," was all she said.

Several long minutes drew out before he spoke again, barely above a whisper. "Are you mad at me?"

She set the spoon down and walked over to him. He was looking at the floor and she gently put her hands on both sides of his face and made him meet her eyes. "I'm not tickled that you think you can boss me around now that you're taller than me," she said with a smirk. "But I am not mad at you."

His breath caught in his throat and suddenly everything he'd told himself he would do and not do vanished. In single motion, with one hand he ran his fingers through her short, dark hair and with the other he lowered his mask, then he leaned in and kissed her lips before she had time to realize what was happening. It felt as if every cell of his body had come to life at once as he tasted the sweet warmth of her mouth against his and he was sure that he would die if that moment ended. But then her mouth moved against lips and her tongue flicked across his, as she pulled herself to him, and he knew he was lost completely.

Realization of what was happening crashed around her. She was kissing Kakashi. Kakashi, who she'd thought of as a younger brother. Pushing him away, she gasped, her head hung as her mind spun with the facts of her current situation. Kakashi had kissed her and she had kissed him back. She was an awful, awful person.

"Ame?" he asked, running his fingers down the side of her face. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

"No, it's just…" a million reasons bombarded her so she chose the most gentle as she looked up into his hopeful gaze, "it's just too soon. Can you understand that?"

The look that flashed in his face crushed her but after a moment he nodded. His face was flush, making the tan line from his mask more pronounced. That, combined with the lopsided headband made him look even younger, which twisted at her guilt.

Thankfully, the pot began to boil over and she hurried away from him to lower the fire, stirring the soup as she tried to recapture her scattered thoughts.

"So… w-what you're saying is that in a few months…"

She looked at him with a pained expression and suddenly reality dawned on him. For whatever reason she'd returned his kiss, she regretted it. Regretted it deeply.

"I understand," he said, turning to leave, but she reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"You don't," she said, remembering Kushina's words from before. He needed friends. She was one of his friends. Pushing him away wouldn't help. "I need time. Not a few months. A few years. Kakashi, I don't even know who I am anymore." It wasn't a lie.

He nodded. "I should go."

She didn't let go of his arm. "Are we still friends?"

"Yeah," he said softly, trying and failing to smile. "We're friends."


	13. Happy Birthday

Three years later...

Kakashi walked into his house covered in dirt and blood and hung the ANBU mask near the door as he kicked off his sandals. For a moment, he gave serious contemplation to the prospect of simply collapsing in his bed from exhaustion. He could always shower in the morning. And wash the sheets. Except that tomorrow was special.

After washing the grime off his hands, he took several pieces of ice from the freezer and dropped them into the dirt of an orchid on the windowsill. He smiled at the plant in its blue and white porcelain vase. Two delicate pink blossoms had decided to open while he was away on the mission. Perfect.

"You're home early, boss," Pakkun said without lifting his head from his paws.

"I told you I would be," Kakashi said. "Thanks for the help with that situation in the cavern, by the way."

"Any time." Pakkun yawned and stretched. "You nervous about tomorrow?"

"Terrified," Kakashi admitted. Outside of his trusted ninken, he would have never made such an admission to another soul.

"You could always back out. That Anko chick is pretty cute, you know, for a human, and Ayame is head over heels for you." Pakkun cocked his head to the side. "I just realized you have a trend going with A names..."

"Go back to bed," Kakashi said, shaking his head.

After the night he'd kissed her, he'd had a hard time going back to just being friends, but he'd managed. Anything was better than losing her. He'd helped her train, watched her graduate, and then pass the chunnin. He'd even gone with her on a few missions. She was an amazing kunoichi: graceful, deadly, and deceptive when she had to be. Through all of it, though he never would have imagined it possible, his love for her had grown.

And tomorrow, on his sixteenth birthday, he would tell her. In a letter, but still. She would know. It had been ten years, after all. Well, almost ten years. Close enough. Yeah, he thought as he stepped into the shower, tomorrow was the day.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The sun was barely peering over the mountains as Ame climbed the last flight of stairs after her morning run. The crisp fall air had invigorated her and made her feel as if all the world were perfect. She unlocked her door, kicked off her sandals and wiggled her toes, relishing the comforting, familiar feeling of bare feet. Some things about Kohona were more difficult to get used to than others.

She opened the door to her refrigerator when a strong set of arms wrapped around her waist. When she jumped, it elicited deep chuckle as a warm set of lips kissed her neck. "Good morning, babe."

"Asuma, I swear, I did not give you the key to my apartment so you could give me a heart attack!" She playfully slapped his arm, but she turned around and kissed his lips.

"Nah," he said trailing kisses down her neck. "You gave it to me because you're ashamed of me and want to keep me hidden away."

"Oh, ha ha," she said, rolling her eyes. "If you don't think you can handle a secret love affair, be my guest and walk out the door."

He looked at her with mock horror. "Me? Not be able to handle a secret love affair. Babe, I am the king of secret love affairs."

Ame gave him a flat look.

Scrubbing the back of his head he chuckled, "Okay, that didn't exactly sound right."

"Seriously," she said, tiptoeing up and planting a kiss on his perfect lips.

She hadn't planned to fall for Asuma. Love, or whatever it was they had, hadn't even been on her radar. But they'd been part of a mission that had involved posing as a couple right after one of his messier break-ups with Kurenai and one thing had led to another.

He was easy to like, handsome, funny, kind, but she couldn't bring herself to be out in public with him in Kohona. Maybe he couldn't bring himself to either, but he teased her so much about her fears that she felt it rather one-sided. The thought that Kakashi would run into them before she had a chance to carefully break the news was uncomfortable, but her younger friend was always away on missions or in the hospital after missions. So a month had slid into two and then three and now here she and Asuma were, still hiding out in their apartments. It really wasn't fair to anyone.

He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, eyeing her mischievously, waiting for her to scold him, but she just giggled as she poured a cup of orange juice.

"So," Asuma said playfully as he lifted her onto the countertop and stood between her legs, leaning his forehead against hers, "what are we going to do with this beautiful morning?"

"Oh, I don't know," she teased, the fingers of one hand sliding down the zipper of his jonin vest as she plucked the cigarette that dangled from his lips with the other. She brought it to her mouth, forming a perfect O as she took a drag. She blew the smoke out against his neck, her warm breath causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. "I'm sure we can think of something."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi walked, carefully holding the orchid so it wouldn't get damaged. "There you are, my eternal rival!" Guy's voice boomed from beside him and he winced. "What lovely flowers! Were they a gift for the momentous occasion of your birthday?"

"I was taking care of them for a friend," Kakashi said through clenched teeth. "I just really need to get them safely back where they belong, so no challenges."

"Say no more, my friend," Guy said, giving him a thumbs up as his teeth sparkled in the morning sun. "I will go easy on you because it is your birthday!"

Kakashi groaned, but gratefully watched Guy walk in the other direction. His mind drifted back to the scenario he'd played a hundred times over. He'd knock on the door and she'd open it, a look of mild shock would be in her eyes as she saw the flowers.

"For me?" she'd ask when he handed him to her. "I'm the one who's supposed to be giving you presents today."

"I saw them and couldn't pass them up," he'd say, leaning against the door frame. "They're beautiful, just like you."

She'd blush and look up at him with those misty colored eyes. "Do you really think so?" she'd ask softly.

"I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever met," he'd say as he ran his fingers through her long, dark hair and drew her closer.

She'd tremble in his arms as she said, "Oh, Kakashi, I've always loved you."

He'd lower his mask and kiss her lips and this time they'd walk back into her apartment and he'd lift her up into his arms and push her up against the wall and...

He froze in front of her door. Sweat and some other tangy odor broke him from his daydream. He listened. There was panting. "Oh kami, yes!" Ame's voice was raspy. "Harder, Asuma!"

The flowerpot fell to the floor and shattered.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ame and Asuma froze at the sound of crashing pottery, both looking towards the door. "What was that?" she whispered.

Muttering something about crap timing, Asuma found his boxers and pulled them on as walked to the door. The orchid lay bent on top a broken pile of porcelain and dirt. A faint, but distinct chakra signature registered and Ame jumped out the bed, scrambling for her clothes. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!"

"What?" Asuma asked, looking between the broken pot and Ame. "What's wrong?"

"I'll explain it when I get back," she promised with a quick peck on his cheek. "I'm sorry about this," she called over her shoulder as she ran down the hall barefoot.

When she got out the building she scanned the busy street desperately for Kakashi's signature. She followed it to an empty alleyway, searching high and low, but there was no sign of him. "Kakashi-kun?" she called out.

From the shadows, high on the overhang of a rooftop, he watched her through the angry tears. He hated himself for having thought that she would ever care for him, that she would ever be his. There was no way he could face her now. He watched as her shoulders fell a little and she turned and walked back the way she'd came.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ame felt cold and empty as she walked back to the apartment. She'd hurt Kakashi without meaning to, and on his birthday no less. He was supposed to still be on a mission, her mind protested angrily.

And that's a really lovely excuse for sleeping with someone else, another voice in her mind chided.

I'm a grown woman and he's still a child. It's not like I'm just going to sit around and wait for him to grow up, she argued with herself as she approached the open door of her apartment.

Asuma had cleaned up the mess on the doorstep, the orchid was sitting in one of her plastic containers on her table and he was leaning against the kitchen counter, fully dressed and stoic, smoking another cigarette.

"Hey," she said timidly. "I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be," he said with a sigh as he stood up and walked to her. He extending his hand, which was holding a folded piece of paper. "I didn't even know Hatake was capable of feelings, much less..." He scrubbed the back of his head as Ame took the note and opened it.

Her eyes briefly scanned the letter. "... realized that I've always been searching for what I found in you... there's nothing I can do or say to deserve your love, but for as long as I live, you will have mine... Kakashi" The arm holding the letter fell to her side as she looked up at Asuma's face.

"I'm sorry I read some of the letter, but..." He sighed. "Look, what we had was fun. It really was. But I saw the look in your eyes when you realized it was him, and, honestly, I know how you feel."

His admission stung. It was the closest he'd come to freely saying what they both knew. She was a bandage to cover the wound Kurenai had left. They had used each other for a time.

"Yeah," was all she could say as she stood there. The energy seemed to have all left her and took with it her breath.

"I'll see you around," Asuma said, with a forced smile as he leaned down and kissed Ame's cheek. "It'll all be okay."

"Yeah," she repeated as he closed the door behind him.

Nothing would be okay. Not ever again.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi stared down at the empty bottle of sake. His vision was beginning waiver as he swayed gently on the barstool. "Hey there," Anko's voice came from behind him as she clapped him on the back, "you look like crap."

"Yo," he said, holding the cup up to her.

Anko chuckled as she sat beside him. She leaned her head so close to his that he could smell the beer on her breath. "So, what's the big, bad Kakashi Hatake drinking to tonight."

"It's my birthday," he said, his words slurring together slightly.

"Really, how old are you?"

"Sixteen."

Anko whistled. "That's a big one. Only turn sixteen once. Or, you know, so I hear."

He rolled his eyes.

"You know what I hate about that mask?" she asked after she gestured to the bartender for her own bottle. When Kakashi didn't respond, she continued, "I can't see whether you're scowling or smirking or what."

He shrugged.

"Do you have buck teeth or something?"

"No," he said.

"You're awfully gloomy, even for you," she said, tilting her head to examine him more closely, as if the reason for his displeasure would be written on his mask. The bartender slid her the bottle and a cup. She ignored the cup and put the bottle to her lips taking a large gulp as she surveyed her friend out of the corner of her eyes.

Several silent minutes drug on before she stood and took his hand. "Come on," she said, pulling him off his stool. He let her drag him through the bar to the side door. She pushed it open and walked out into the moonlit alley.

Before he could process anything her hands were on him as her lips pressed against his through the mask. He pulled away, a blush rising to his cheeks that had nothing to do with the alcohol. "What're ya doing?" he asked.

"Wishing you happy birthday, Bucky," she said, her fingers dancing over his chest. "Whatdaya think I'm doin'?"

She leaned in and kissed him again, her fingers going up to the edge of his mask, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled it to his chest. "No," he said before his masked lips kissed her neck.

"Whatever you say." She chuckled as she started to unbutton his pants.

He looked around the dirty alley and back to her. "Not here," he said, taking her hand in his and leading her out into the street.

She nodded wordlessly, letting him lead her. They didn't talk as they walked quickly through the moonlight. As they rounded the corner of his street, he snaked his arm around her waist, kissing her neck as he leaned against her. His mind was too clouded with sorrow, anger, and liquor to care that she wasn't Ame.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

He woke the next morning with a throbbing headache. Groaning, he opened his eyes against the harsh morning sun and looked over to the empty span of bed beside him. On the nightstand was a note that simply read, "Happy Birthday, Bucky."

It was a good thing he barely remembered anything. My first time. He gave a mirthless chuckle that sent a shock of pain through his brain. I am never drinking again.

An agonizing realization washed over him. Yesterday morning, he'd gone to Ame's and she'd been in bed with another man. He'd dropped her flowers and the note he'd wrote her confessing his love.

He felt like he was going to puke.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The morning light found Ame curled up against the warming windowpane. The note had fluttered to the ground below her hand. She'd read it and reread it until the words were burned into her brain.

My dearest Ame,

Please keep reading because I doubt I'll be able to find a way to say this out loud. There is no reason I should ever hope to be happy, but I am asking you for a chance at happiness. You deserve someone a million times better than I can ever be, and yet, I am selfish. I realized that I've always been searching for what I found in you. You are brave, kind, strong, smart, and the most amazingly gorgeous woman I've ever seen. I know there's nothing I can do or say to deserve your love, but for as long as I live, you will have mine.

With every piece of my heart,

Kakashi

She stirred, rubbing her tear swollen eyes before she sat up with a start and searched for the letter. Finding it on the floor, she plucked it up carefully and folded it. She had no idea how she'd face him again.

Of course she'd known he liked her, but she'd thought it was a silly, little crush. She had expected any week for him to find some other girl to admire. There were no shortage of them in the village who found his mysterious, bad boy persona irresistible. She'd chuckled more than once over the whispers in the women's bath houses. They had no idea who he really was.

Even as she'd started to see him as the man he was growing into, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was still a little boy. The danger other women saw in him, she saw as defense. The mystery was another wall he put up between him and the rest of the world. He was fragile and she'd broken him.

There wasn't time to mourn, though. She dressed quickly and grabbed a power bar from the cabinet before she left for work. The only good thing she could think was that there would be a mission that needed filling, which would take her mind off of her own stupidity.

As she was walking through the market, a shock of white hair poking from behind a doglike ANBU mask caused her to start. He was walking towards her, hands shoved down in his pockets. Every cell in her body wanted to run the other direction, but she forced herself to keep walking.

"Kakashi," she said softly as they neared each other.

He gave her a two fingered salute as he slowed.

She stopped directly in his path. "About yesterday..."

"Don't worry about it," he said without taking off the mask that covered his face.

"But I didn't mean for you to..."

He shrugged. "I said not to worry about it. I'll see you around, Ame." And then he walked around her, disappearing into the throng of people, who were moving around her like a stream around a boulder.


	14. Kintsukuroi

Kakashi barely heard his commander's words about the attackers being imposters when he leapt from the guard tower. Although he could sense his fellow ANBU following him pushed himself to run through the trees faster. The red garb of the imposter ninjas made an easy target.

"One," he whispered to himself. "Chidori." Lightning flew off his hand and into the chest of the man in front of him.

"Two." Another fell.

"Three."

"Four."

The last lost his footing as the branch he'd hastily landed on snapped in half and he crashed to the ground, his shins cracking from the impact. Pathetic, Kakashi thought as he removed his mask. "Five," he said, his eyes narrowing at the cowering expression on the other man's face. "Chidori."

"No, please," the man begged.

He hated it when they did that.

"Kakashi, wait!" The stern voice of his commander called out from behind him, but he didn't hesitate as he blasted the lightning through his enemy's chest.

"It would have been helpful if you would have kept at least one of them alive for interrogation," his commander said, looking down at the corpse.

Kakashi turned to him slowly and glared. They already knew all they needed to. These men were trying to start a war by impersonating foreign ninja. What use would have that pathetic coward's driveling have been?

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Kakashi, I want you to leave your current mission, and take on a special mission," Minato said as he leaned forward slightly and studied his former student.

"Was there a problem?" Kakashi asked.

"It's nothing like that. It's more like a top-secret errand." Minato smiled. "Kushina's pregnant!"

"Oh…" Kakashi said, perking up slightly. "Congratulations."

That's the first flicker of joy I've heard from him in months, Minato thought. "I want you to guard her against any incidents."

"Yes, sir."

When he'd left, Minato opened the file on his desk, looking with some disbelief at the report from Kakashi's ANBU officer. "No signs of psychological trauma," it read. He shook his head as he closed the file. Then again, he was always a serious, intense kid, Minato thought. Maybe his current state has nothing to do with Rin.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The wind tore over the rooftops as Kakashi's eyes roved the horizon. Billows of angry storm clouds were forming. His black cloak fluttered around him. Although he needed little help to blend in with the shadows, it was beneficial for that, and it kept off the worse of the rain and sun.

For three months he'd been following Kushina everywhere she went. There were days he knew she never saw him, and there were days, like today, where he was perched on one of the far pitches of her rooftop. If she glanced out her window, she could see him crouched there like a gargoyle.

With a large crack of lightning, the sky opened and a torrent of rain poured down on him. He didn't flinch, but kept scanning for potential threats. He heard a window open, and he looked towards it. "Kakashi!" Kushina called.

In a two leaps, he was there, kneeling before her. "Yes, my lady," he said.

"Pfft, my lady, my foot," she scoffed. "Get in here! You'll catch your death on that rooftop."

"I can't leave my post."

Kushina's eyes grew angry as her hair began to lift. With a grunt, she grabbed Kakashi by the collar and yanked him through the open window. "Look, you little brat, I said get in here and I meant get in here! If Minato has a problem with me worrying that you catch a cold, let him deal with me! Got it!?"

All he could do was nod mutely.

"And take that cloak off. You're dripping water everywhere." Kushina said with a huff. "You can protect me as well in here as you can up on the roof. Better even! Got it? Now, do you like cocoa?"

"Ma'am?" He was holding the dripping cloak, eyes wide as he starred at the woman in front of him whose demeanor had done a 180 flip from dangerous to sweet.

She groaned. "I thought you were supposed to be a genius. Cocoa. Hot cocoa. You make it with chocolate and milk and sugar." She groaned again. "Forget it, I'm making some and you're drinking it. I won't have you catching a cold."

He nodded wordlessly as he watched her go into the kitchen.

"So, where's your friend, Ame, these days?" Kushina asked after she returned, carrying two steaming mugs.

He winced and her eyebrow raised slightly.

"Come sit with me," she said, gesturing to the sofa before she sat down.

He would rather have been out there in the driving rain. A million times over. Hell, he would have preferred being at the bottom of the ocean at that moment, but Kushina wasn't a woman to be crossed, so he reluctantly took a seat.

"So?" she prodded.

"I don't know," he said honestly. The last time he'd laid eyes on Ame, she'd been in the market buying groceries, but he'd taken a quick detour and he doubted she'd even seen him. The time before that was the morning after his sixteenth birthday. There were benefits to being able to quickly recognize chakra signatures and avoid them.

Kushina sighed. "I saw her last week. She looked like a woman with a broken heart."

Nothing Asuma can't fix, he thought, his eyes locked on the window.

Kushina's eyes narrowed as she stared at him. As fast as the lightning outside the window, her hand came down hard on the back of Kakashi's head. "What are you!? An idiot!? I tell you the girl you've been having a crush on since you were a kid is heartbroken and you don't even have a flicker of emotion!? I don't know what's wrong with you, but you need to get your head out your ass!"

For a long moment he sat in stunned silence, his mismatched eyes wide with shock. "She's dating someone else," he said when his voice returned to him.

"Correction, she was dating someone else. Eight months ago," Kushina said with a huff.

"She doesn't like me," he said, rubbing the back of his head as he stared down at the mug in his other hand.

"Wrong again! You really are a dunce, ya know that?"

"What would you know about it?" he said, his anger rising.

She scoffed, pointing to herself. "Ugh, hello. Woman," she sing-songed. "Plus, she blushes whenever anyone mentions your name."

He inwardly groaned. That stupid fucking note. That'd be enough to make anyone blush.

"So I'm giving you a new assignment," She said, leaning back with a smirk. "You're going to visit your friend."

Fighting back a grin, he realized he had an easy out. "I work here fifteen hours a day."

"And you only need to sleep for eight. Accounting for travel and meals, that gives you a good half hour to at least check on her."

"I don't think amusing you is part of my job description," he said flatly.

Her anger was back in an instant and she leapt from her seat, empty mug crashing to the floor. Her eyes were glowing with rage as she pointed a finger at him. "When you get off work today, you will visit Ame Shinrinyoku or I will personally see to it that you fully understand what pain is! You got that!?"

It took a lot to scare Kakashi, but Kushina Uzumaki was one scary woman. He nodded, eyes fixed on her, wondering why exactly this woman needed round the clock protection. Anything short of a horde of demons would be no match for her.

Her whole visage changed in an instant and she smiled a genuine smile as she said in the sweetest voice, "Good! How was that cocoa?"

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The rain had stopped when he got off for the night. The streets were beginning to empty as houselights flickered on and families gathered around the supper tables. Kakashi kicked a pebble out ahead of him, watching it skip through the puddles. What am I going to say to her? He gave consideration to just skipping Kushina's assignment, but quickly put that thought out his mind.

As he stood in front of her door, he couldn't help but think of that morning. Every hope he'd had had been shattered like that orchid pot. Kushina's right, I'm an idiot, he thought as he raised his hand and gave two sharp knocks.

The door opened and Ame stood before him, her eyes wide with shock, her breath catching in her throat. "Ka-Kakashi-kun?"

"Yo," he said with a nod.

"I… What are you doing here?"

Yeah, what are you doing here, Kakashi-kun? He coughed into his fist. "I just wanted to check on you."

"I'm okay," she said slowly. "Do you want to come in?"

He nodded, following her inside. She gestured to the clutch of large pillows that used to be around the fire pit in her tent. "Will you sit with me?"

Her eyes didn't meet his as they sat. She fidgeted with the edge of a pillow. On her windowsill, he noticed the orchid sitting in the mended pot. Shimmering fault lines of the Kintsukuroi glittered in the lantern light making the pot more beautiful than it had been before it was broken.

"I'm sorry about your birthday."

It felt like his heart was being stabbed. "I told you not to worry about that."

She bit her lip. "I read your note."

Of course you did.

"I-I didn't know you felt that way."

He wanted to play it off as some stupid mistake, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. The only sound he could hear was his heartbeat throbbing in his ears. Glancing at Ame, he could see tears forming in her eyes. No, no, no, you idiot! You're making her cry! Say something!

"I meant every word," he said softly. "I still do."

A brilliant smile broke on her face that reminded Kakashi of the dawn. Reaching out, he took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together.

With her other hand, she slowly lowered his mask, her eyes locked on his. "I love you too," she said, just above a whisper as she leaned in. For a moment she lingered, her hot breath tickling his bare lips as her fingers caressed the hairline of his neck.

And then her lips met his. Soft at first, almost chaste. Except that it lit a fire within him that he didn't know if he could quench. She loves me, he thought as he deepened the kiss. She loves me. His hands were in her hair. She loves me. Everything else in the world could have disappeared in that moment and he wouldn't have cared. She loves me.

But then reality set in and he pulled away slightly, leaning his head against hers. "I'm going to be gone a lot," he said. "For the next few months. Until October."

"You're guarding Kushina. I know," she said with a faint smile.

"How did you..?"

"I'm a kunoichi, remember? Gathering information is what I do."

He gave a soft chuckle. "Yeah." His hand brushing through her hair. "My beautiful kunoichi."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

That night, as she lay alone in her bed, she gazed up at the stars, her fingers playing on her lips. It had been eight months since she'd spoken to him. Eight months was a long time to think and reflect.

At first she'd only felt guilt for hurting him. She'd gone through her days robotically. Missions were a welcome reprieve from being at home and thinking. Every night she'd read and reread the letter at least three times.

The guilt morphed into longing without her even realizing it. "You deserve someone a million times better than I can ever be, and yet, I am selfish." Selfish. That was supposed to be a bad thing. Miho's words from long ago echoed in her eyes, "belonging to all and to no one."

But he wants me. Me. For himself and himself alone. I could belong to him.

She smiled in the darkness. It didn't matter that he stuttered over his words now and then, blushing as he told her that he needed to go home to feed the dogs shortly after he'd kissed her. She knew he was afraid of hurting her again if he fell asleep near her. He was protective that way. And he was hers, and she was his.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The next morning in the market, she ran into Kushina. "Well, don't you look happy this morning," the pregnant woman said with a broad grin. "You look like a woman in love!"

Ame blushed as she scanned the shadows for a sign of Kakashi.

"Oh, he's around here somewhere," Kushina said with a knowing wink.


	15. Wishes

Ame lay on the tree branch in the waning daylight, straining to see the last few words on the page of her book when a pale hand reached out and snatched it from her. "Kakashi!" she snapped, leaping to her feet as she glared up at the ninja who was dangling from a branch above her with her copy of Icha Icha Paradise in his hands. "Give me my book back!"

She jumped for it, but he easily dodged, chuckling as he landed on a higher branch. He crouched down and opened the novel. "What's so interesting about this that you couldn't even sense me coming?" His eyes grew wide and a fierce blush rose to his cheeks.

"I said. Give. It. Back." She lunged and missed again.

"You're reading porn? In public?" He looked at her in wide-eyed wonder as if seeing her for the first time in his life.

"It is not porn," she growled through clenched teeth, "and this is not public." She gestured to the woods around them.

Kakashi's eyes roved the words on the pages. "This is definitely porn."

"Okay, let's get one thing straight," she said, putting her hand on her hip. "This is a work of art. It's a beautiful, eloquent tale of love and intrigue. It's romantic. Not that you would understand that word!"

"Hey, I bring you flowers and write you sappy love letters," he said defensively as he evaded her yet again.

"Once!"

"On the same day that I believe you were fucking Asuma Sarutobi. It's obviously a very bad move on my part. I'm a fast learner," he chuckled as her anger grew. Enough time had passed that the sting of that day and those that had followed it were a distant memory and he found it excellent fodder when he'd run out of things to tease her about.

"Give me my book back!" she snapped.

"If it's so interesting that you'd let your guard down, I really think I ought to check it out," he said, clicking his tongue as he lazily flipped the pages. "I could learn a thing or two."

Ame stopped, drawing a deep breath as she realized that chasing him was of absolutely no use at all. "If you give it back to me, I'll read it to you," she said sweetly, as she leaned against a tree trunk, her eyes locked on him.

His eyebrow twitched as his heart began to race. "Seriously?"

"On my word of honor as a Leaf Village kunoichi," she said with a seductive pout. "Please."

Breathlessly he reached over and handed her the novel. She smiled sweetly at him as she said, "Thank you," and sat down, demurely crossing her legs as opened the novel. Running her tongue over her lips, she looked over the top of the book at him. "Icha Icha Paradise, page one."

And then she vanished in a puff of smoke.

On that day, Kakashi learned not to trust anything on the honor of a Leaf Village kunoichi.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ame woke the next day and stretched. The sun hadn't risen yet as she padded out of bed and flicked on the kitchen light. Her sleep addled brain told her something wasn't quite right. Someone had been in her house. Something had been taken.

Her eyes scanned the room quickly before they fell on her empty nightstand where she'd laid Icha Icha Paradise the night before. Her eyes narrowed as she caught the faint chakra signature. "Kakashi," she growled.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Stealing is wrong," Ame scolded the young man who was lazily laying on the rooftop of her apartment, flipping the page of her novel in the moonlight.

"Hmmm," he said without looking up from the book. "I thought that was pretty much part of the job description."

With a sigh, she leapt onto the roof beside him. She waved her hand around them. "This is actually public. I thought you were opposed to reading porn in public."

"I have it on very good authority that this isn't porn," he said, and she could see the faint outline of a smirk beneath his mask. "It's art."

"You're never giving me my book back, are you?"

"Nope," he said, smiling up at her.

"I hate you," she said as she crouched beside him.

He chuckled. "Tsk, tsk, if you're good, I'll read it to you."

"We only have a half hour before you need to get home, are you seriously going to spend it up here reading that smut?"

"Smut?" he said feigning offense. "A guy's got to find release some way or another."

"Ha ha," she said. "There are only two months until your birthday. Anyone can wait sixty days."

"Fifty-two," he said without looking up from the novel. "And three hours."

"You have it pinned down to the hour?!"

"I have it pinned down to the second." He glanced up at her. "My job is exceptionally boring."

"I hope you're not bringing that to work with you!"

"I wouldn't dream of it," he said, snapping the book shut and tucking it into his pouch as he sat up. "How was your day?"

She shrugged. "I got the maps from the house of a Stone commander without even having to fight a single shinobi," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"See what I mean," he chuckled. "It's all part of the job description."

"So I'm work now?" She pouted.

Reaching out, he gently brushed his fingers against her cheek then slid them through her hair and pulled her towards him. "You," he said barely above a whisper, "are pleasure. You always have been and you always will be." Planting a kiss on her nose, he quickly added, "But you can be a bit of a handful some time."

She smacked his arm. Joy bubbled up inside her as she leaned her head against his shoulder and drew a deep breath. He smelled like home. Above them, a shooting star streaked across the sky and she raised her hand to point at it. "Did you make a wish?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, smiling at her. A long time ago, he thought as he tucked a stray hair behind her ear. It was the first, the only, wish he ever remembered coming true, but he wouldn't trade it for the world.


End file.
